


Pulling Threads

by iamocelost



Series: Take Luck in Hand [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Anxiety Disorder, Damian is a lovable brat, Eventual Smut, F/M, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Mission Fic, Slow Burn, So is Jason
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-18
Updated: 2017-12-10
Packaged: 2018-10-20 08:32:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 29
Words: 95,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10658838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamocelost/pseuds/iamocelost
Summary: Jason needs to find the rest of the Untitled before they get any ideas about upsetting the cosmic balance of good and evil. Eerie needs a break from being Damian's tutor/intellectual chew toy, and she just so happens to be a meta with skills Jason can use.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! 
> 
> This is a fic that got orphaned for a while over on ff.net, but I've been secretly growing it into a fully formed story, and now I'm ready to release it onto the world. I wanted to say a few things before we get started, though.
> 
> 1\. This fic is pretty much completely drafted. I even have ideas for a sequel if people seem to like it. I'm just putting that here for those people who, like me, appreciate some fic security before they get attached.
> 
> 2\. A quick word about timeline: This story picks up right after Night of the Owls. We'll be skipping Death of the Family because I wanted everyone elsewhere. As far as Jason's trajectory -- *shrug*. Some days I like to think that Jason ended up with Ducra after his Lost Days, sometimes it makes more sense that Ducra came first. It doesn't really matter here, apart from the fact that it all happened.
> 
> Anyway, here's the fic. I hope you enjoy it as much I have.

“I know Batgirl just threatened to throw us in jail if we don’t leave Gotham, but I don’t think we can go just yet.”

Roy looked up from the control panel of the alien craft, jaw slightly agape. Jason had obviously lost his mind. “What do you mean we can’t go?” he asked. “I thought flying away from the Bats in an invisible spaceship would be a life-long dream of yours!”

“I must agree with Roy,” said Kori. “We should be leaving as quickly as possible.”

Jason’s clenched his teeth slightly. “Can you just set the ship on top of a damn building for a second?”

Roy shrugged and did what he asked, muttering something about how if a certain caped crusader ran into a certain invisible spaceship, he was not cleaning it off the windshield. He then turned his chair around to face Jason, crossing his arms over his chest. He saw that Kori had copied his pose, giving him her mess-with-me-and-I-will-blow-a-hole-in-you glare. It made a shiver run down his spine.

Jason was pacing a little in front of them. “So we still have to find the Untitled…”

“I thought that you had avenged your teacher by killing the Untitled who was her killer,” Kori said tersely.

Jason ran a hand through his hair. “I mean, that’s what Essence said, but I don’t know if I believe her any more. In any case, there are forces of pure fucking evil running amok in the world and the one thing that was keeping them in check is gone.”

“Careful, Jason,” said Roy. “This is starting to sound like superhero talk, and you know how I feel about superhero talk.”

“Shut the hell up, Roy. If you guys don’t want to do this, that’s fine, but I’m going after the rest of the Untitled.” Jason started to turn away.

“Cool it, man,” said Roy, “I’m just messing with you. Of course, we’ll help you.” He looked at Kori, who shrugged and nodded.

Jason took a deep breath and continued. “So we found the last one because of clues left in the Chamber of All, but we’ve got nothing to go on for the rest, so we’re going to need some help.” He took another deep breath and looked at the floor as he said, “I think we should contact Kairos.”

Roy realized that Jason was waiting for a negative reaction after several seconds of uncomfortable silence. Luckily, Kori broke it. “Who is Kairos?” Roy could have kissed her for saying what he was thinking but didn’t want to say for fear of looking like an idiot (but he’d kiss her for almost any reason, really).

Jason looked up sharply. "You guys don't know Kairos?" He saw the confused look that Roy guessed was on his face along with Kori's level gaze and snorted. "I guess she's managed to keep her low profile. Four years ago," he began after sitting down on a metal chest, "shortly before the Bruce did his big disappearing act, there was a string of people going crazy and starting arguments with whoever was around them for no reason. Sometimes it got violent, but afterwards, these people couldn't remember why they were fighting, only that they felt this overwhelming anxiety, like the world was ending or something. Batman figured it was Scarecrow trying out some new toxin, but all the tox screens came back clean. So the Replacement, being the good little detective he is, started going through all the CCTV footage and found that the same woman was nearby for a lot of the events. He and Bats tracked her down -- she was a student at Gotham University -- but when they confronted her, she tells them that she knows she's the problem, but she's trying to get it under control. Turns out all the stress from school and everything was getting to her, and her meta powers, which she'd been living with her whole life, were just going haywire, doing things she'd never been able to do before."

"What kind of powers are we talking about here?" asked Roy.

"Kairos can 'see'" -- Jason used air quotes -- "the relationships between people. She's gotten really good at interpreting whatever information it is that she's getting, so she would be able to tell that we were friends, sure, but she'd also be able to tell that I saved your life, that we've kissed the same girl --"

"I don't like being talked about like I'm not here," said Kori.

"Sorry, but she can tell a lot, and then she can see how things change based on what gets said, so sometimes she can figure out what to say in order to strengthen or break a relationship. She's like an interpersonal communications extraordinaire. What was happening was that she was accidentally projecting all of her own anxieties into other people's relationships. So of course, the fucking Bat immediately got her into crime fighting."

"I'm confused," said Roy. "She doesn't sound like a fighter."

"I agree," said Kori. "She sounds better suited for _diplomacy_." She said it like a bad word.

"You're not thinking this all the way through," said Jason. "She's, like, the ideal tool for tackling organized crime. She can map out the mob, then convince the low level guys to rat out their bosses when they get taken. Of course, those bosses still go free sooner or later, which is why Batman is such a failure --"

"Yeah, we don't need to hear that one again," said Roy. "Also, I thought that Batman had some serious trust issues with metas."

"Sure he does, but this meta has a skill set that he finds particularly useful. He's got no problem using her, but he's probably got a plan for taking her out anyway. Hell, he's probably even convinced her they're _family_ by now," Jason spat.

"So why do you think we should contact this Kairos?" asked Kori, still sounding unconvinced.

"The Untitled like to situate themselves in positions of power, to keep themselves comfortable and safe. You saw the way those people in Colorado acted when I took out the Untitled there. If anyone is going to pick up on that kind of weird fanaticism, it's Kairos." Jason looked at Kori, then Roy. "Look, I know the idea of working with a Bat like this is, well, fucking ridiculous. And I don't even know if she'd even give us the time of day, but I'm out of ideas."

Kori shrugged. "I will follow your plan," she said simply. "This has been more fun than being on the island alone, at least."

Roy nodded his assent. "It sounds like she could help, so maybe you should give her a call."

Jason frowned, momentum gone now that he’d persuaded them. "Easier said than done. Maybe you guys could take off for a few days while I track her down? I can call you for a pick-up later."

A couple of days alone with Kori and an alien spaceship to tinker with? Roy didn't need to be asked twice.

+++++

Knowing a mask's secret identity always made it easier to find them. After she finished her M.A. degree, Areopagitica "Eerie" Rice had taken a job as Bruce Wayne's personal assistant. Jason guessed it was so Kairos would have a good reason to be in those business meetings that often served as Batman's research trips, but the thought of keeping track of Bruce's calendar made him want to barf. Even worse, she lived at the manor, meaning she'd be at his beckon call 24 hours a day. From what Jason heard, she even tutored that little demon son of Bruce's too. _If nothing else_ , thought Jason, _she might jump at the chance to get away from Demon Spawn for a few weeks._

Jason knew that Kairos spent most of her non-personal assistant time monitoring the mobs, so his best bet for running into her on a rooftop would be to find out when some big meet was happening and monitor it himself. This normally wouldn’t be a problem for Red Hood, but the Talons’ recent run through the city had everyone nervous. It took a couple of days for anything to turn up; after knocking a few heads and shooting a few feet, he learned that the Helie Brothers were meeting with their suppliers the next evening and felt pretty sure this was something Kairos wouldn't miss.

Jason found that a couple of his safe houses had gone undiscovered in his absence, and he was well-armed and fairly well-rested when he perched himself on the roof of a warehouse overlooking the supposed meeting place. He began carefully scanning the surrounding area as the mob bosses below exchanged terse words; he kept going back to one patch on shadow on another warehouse roof that seemed odd, but wasn't sure it was her until she shifted a little. She was lying flat on her stomach, and when Red Hood zoomed in on her, he could see some movement in the fabric that covered the lower half of her face, like she was talking to herself or someone else. _Hopefully herself,_ thought Jason. _The last thing I need is for her to call B and Demon Spawn as soon as she sees me._

He moved slowly to a closer position, but waited to approach her until the meeting was over and all parties had gone their separate ways. He was standing several yards away from her when she stood up and noticed  him. Her face was still covered, but her body language suggested she had been startled. Pulling the cover on her lower face down around her neck, she said, "Red Hood. You're still in town."

Kairos wore the skin-tight Kevlar suit favored by the Bats in dark gray and without a tunic over it, like the Bats usually favored. Her emblem -- an eight-pointed asterisk-looking thing -- was on her chest in a slightly darker color, almost invisible. Over this, she wore a cape and hood in a similar color, but textured to look like concrete; Jason supposed this would make good camouflage but he'd never been one for subtlety himself. The hood pulled up to hook to the subtle points at the top of her mask, which covered a lot of the upper half of her face.

"Well, you know how it is," Hood said. "Gotham just pulls you in and never lets you go."

"I'm guessing you've come to me for a reason." She was frowning, but the white-out lenses in her mask made it impossible to really read her features.

At one point in his life, Red Hood would have goaded her a bit because she was a meta, because she was a Bat, because she was on The Right Side, whatever the hell that meant. Tonight, though, he had more important things to worry about. "I'm working a case and I've hit a dead end. I was hoping you would help."

He could tell that surprised her. It was almost like, in the silence that followed, she was trying to think of the right comeback, like it was a "What would Batman do?" -- or, even worse "What would Dick fucking Grayson do?" -- moment. He watched her jaw clench and then relax as she made a decision. "What kind of case is it?" she asked.

"What, no 'I don't kill people' speech? Daddy Bats will be disappointed." Okay, maybe he couldn't resist goading just a little bit.

Her jaw clenched again. "You seem to be mistaking me for one of his sons," she said in a clipped tone. "I've looked you up, Red Hood, and you've killed a lot of people, but no one could ever accuse you of killing an innocent. I figured I'd hear you out first and then decide if the proposed action would violate _my_ moral code." The way she emphasized "my" made Hood think that maybe she wasn't so happy with Batman's way of doing things after all. Or maybe she was just pissed about the "Daddy Bats" thing.

"A while back, I threw in with an ancient order called the All-Caste," he began, sitting on the edge of the roof. "Their primary objective was to defend the world against an evil race called the Untitled, once-humans who drank from a well that was the source of all evil and blah blah blah." He glanced at her; she still appeared to be listening attentively, so she hadn't written him off just yet. "Recently, the All-Caste were massacred, supposedly by the Untitled. Whether that's true or not, it still means that we have an ancient evil without its counterpart..."

"And you are the one who will bring balance to the force," Kairos said, putting on a mystical voice.

Hood smirked behind his helmet. "Normally, I kick the ass of anyone who compared me to a whiny shit like Anakin Skywalker, but I am asking for your help after all."

"And how exactly are you planning to return the balance?"

"By destroying the Untitled. They're powerful, but not unstoppable, and the All-Caste equipped me for the fight."

"So it does come down to killing."

"If returning an ancient evil to its home, far away from humankind, is killing, then yeah, I guess so."

Kairos pursed her lips. "Why do you need me?" she asked.

"The Untitled disguise themselves as humans in positions of moderate power: enough to stay comfortable, not enough to be noticed. They manage to insinuate themselves into communities so that when they're killed, the people around them go crazy. I had help tracking down the first one, but now that help has dried up. I was hoping that, with your special talents, you could help me find the others."

Kairos was quiet in thought, and Jason let her think. She finally said, "I'm kind of taking you at your word that they're evil."

"The moment you're in front of one in its true form, you won't doubt me."

"That's terribly convenient."

Hood sighed. "It's the best I can do. We could make a deal, no killing unless you give the go-ahead."

"And you would keep that deal?"

"I may kill people, but I keep promises," he said firmly, looking her straight in the eye.

Kairos sighed and shifted her weight back and forth a few times. "I need to think about it. How can I contact you later?"

Hood had come prepared for this; he pulled a prepaid cell phone out of one of his pockets and tossed it to her. "Just call the number on the contact list," he said.

She nodded, put the phone somewhere in the belt pouches, and took off into the night.

All in all, he thought it had gone alright.


	2. Chapter 2

Kairos ran a few blocks away from her chance encounter with Red Hood before crouching behind a vent and pulling her knees up to her chest. Her heart was pounding and she tried to take deep breaths.  _ Fucking Red Hood,  _ she thought, holding the air in her lungs for several long seconds. She had been expecting a bullet in her gut, not an offer for a job. Not that she had any reason to think that Red Hood would want to hurt her, but Tim and Damian both talked like the guy had no moral compass or sense of propriety at all. In fact, it was the the one thing they seemed to agree on.

As her heart rate slowed and her breathing returned to normal, Kairos began to notice the way the sweat running down her sides had started to itch. Twisting her torso to try to scratch her sides against the slightly-rough inside of her suit, she tried to organize her thoughts into a list. First, she would return to the cave and document what she had learned tonight about the Helie Brothers. Second, she would check in on Batman and Robin; they were supposed to be tracking some Talons and she didn’t want anyone disappearing into a secret underground labyrinth again. Third, she would decide if she even wanted to consider Red Hood’s offer. 

She told herself, as she started moving across the rooftops again back to where she had left her bike, that she had only taken the phone because it gave her a better chance of getting away without getting shot. Bruce would probably have a fit if she tried to leave for a while, even if it wasn’t with Red Hood. Really, she should just call Hood as soon as she got back and tell him she couldn’t do it.

On her way back to the cave, though, she kept going over the information she had picked up from Red Hood, what she had seen in the invisible strings attaching him to other people. He was working with Arsenal and Starfire and obviously cared about them, he seemed to have some kind of relationship with a monster named Crux who he  _ hadn't _ killed, and the burning hatred he'd held toward Batman the last time she'd seen him had mellowed. She might have even sensed a tinge of regret running along the thread to Tim. 

Of course, metaphors of threads could never adequately explain what she "saw", but it did keep her from going crazy with sensory overload. At least if she imposed the metaphor on herself, she had some way of figuring out what feelings were being directed toward whom. And Red Hood had a lot of feelings -- some positive, more negative, all strong.

Back in the cave, she sat down at the big computer console and, after removing her mask, took out the removable drive that captured video from the lenses and audio from a microphone in the lower face cover. Tim had rigged it up for her years ago so she could keep notes about who she was looking at and their connections without having to look away or know names. She had started the process of uploading the data and tagging it appropriately when Alfred came down the stairs behind her with a tea service. "What will it be tonight, Miss Eerie?" he asked in that ever-comforting British accent. "Caffeinated or herbal?"

"Herbal," she answered, looking up at him. "Early meeting tomorrow, so after I get this taken care of, I'm turning in. Speaking of which, have Batman and Robin checked in?"

"Not in the last two hours," Alfred answered as he began preparing the tea.

"Okay, I'll check up on them, then." Eerie turned back to the console and pulled out her comm device. "Batman, this is Kairos. What's your status?"

Batman responded quickly, suggesting he was in the car. "I'm en route to collect Robin, then we're returning to the cave.

"Copy that," Eerie replied before hitting a button on the comm. "Robin, this is Kairos. What's your status?"

Eerie heard some heavy breathing and distant screams before Robin answered. "Your timing is terrible as usual, but I can assure you that I haven't lost myself to some evil secret society yet."

Eerie couldn't help rolling her eyes as she answered. "Copy that, Robin. B is en route to your location."

"I don't need help!" Robin snapped, and in the background Eerie heard the heavy thud of a boot meeting flesh.

"Well good, because he's only giving you a ride," Eerie snapped back. "Kairos out." Alfred set a steaming mug of tea in front of her as she leaned back in the large chair. "Alfred, I think my patience with Damian is wearing a little thin," she admitted as she picked up the mug.

"Yes," said Alfred, "I believe we all have those moments with Master Damian." She smiled tightly; Alfred even acknowledging that an emotion like impatience existed was noteworthy. She started filing her notes from the night, linking some faces from the video footage with police mug shots and sipping on the warm tea, while Alfred returned upstairs with the tea service. When she couldn't justify any more time on obsessive note-taking, she started searching for some of the things Red Hood had mentioned: the Untitled, the All-Caste. She quickly ended the search, though, as the Batmobile roared into the cave, and out emerged a tense pair of crime-fighters; obviously they had been arguing in the car. Even without her skills, Eerie would have been able to tell that Robin had done something that Batman saw as crossing a line, but he had no reasons for justifying that line that Robin would value. She couldn't help rolling her eyes again; two rhetors talking at cross-purposes until they were blue in the face.

Robin stomped off to the showers, but B stopped behind her chair, pulling his cowl down. "Who'd you see tonight?" he asked.

_ He knows, _ she thought, heart jumping into her throat. Instead, she answered, "The Helie Brothers meeting with a supplier. Looks like they've gone international." Her voice only wavered a hair.

Bruce grunted, apparently not noticing her nervousness, and headed toward the showers himself. Eerie took this opportunity to change her own clothes and flee the manor entirely after dropping her mug into the kitchen sink. During the walk out to the guest house she had called home for the last three and a half years, she considered her options. She didn't really want to call the Red Hood back tonight; it would make it seem like she hadn't thought about his offer at all, and she didn't want to get on his bad side. She also felt like she wasn't seeing the situation properly. She didn't feel like the right person to judge what it meant that a vigilante like Red Hood had turned his attention to this kind of aliens and/or magic type case, since his previous work had mostly involved drug cartels, human trafficking, and domestic terrorism. (Eerie knew this because Bruce kept tabs on Jason, and Eerie made it her business to know what Bruce was keeping tabs on.)

Eerie pushed open the front door that she never bothered to lock and immediately flopped on the lumpy futon-turned-sofa that she’d had since high school; Bruce had insisted that he would furnish the guest house, but Eerie had refused. She pulled out her phone, suddenly deciding that Dick was exactly the person to talk to. Luckily, his circus was currently in town, and him with it. She sent him a text. "Need to talk. Brunch tomorrow? Done at WE at 10:30."

Eerie knew that Dick would still be up, and sure enough her phone beeped with a quick reply. "Amici's? Everything okay?"

She answered. "Strange run-in tonight. Everything is fine; only *considering* doing something dangerous. See you at Amici's."

The phone beeped again as she dragged herself to the bedroom. "I'm always in favor of doing the dangerous thing :)." She snorted. If Dick only knew...

Eerie was only slightly groggy when she got out of bed the following morning and climbed into the shower. She ran a brush through her short hair without bothering to blow-dry it; it would be dry enough by the time they got to the office. She had just finished putting on her make-up and stuffing everything she needed for the day in a bag when Alfred honked the horn outside. Bruce was in the back seat of the car with a dozen notes about the developer he was meeting that morning. Supposedly Mr. Keid's company had designed a more efficient way to manufacture solar panels, but Bruce wanted Eerie to make sure that Keid actually believed what he was saying. And to, you know, look for any connections to law-breakers while she was at it.

The meeting itself was incredibly boring, especially since Keid genuinely meant every word that came out of his mouth. Eerie dutifully took notes and uploaded them to Bruce's private server as Bruce shook hands with Keid for the last time. "Well?" he said after he shut the door.

"He's on the up-and-up," said Eerie. "It sounds like a good investment to me." She started putting things back in her bag. "I'm meeting Dick for brunch. Any messages you'd like me to pass along?"

"Just say hi."

"Sure thing." 

Eerie started toward the door, but stopped when Bruce said her name. "Eerie, is everything alright? You seemed agitated last night."

_ Of course he noticed,  _ she thought.  _ He's the damn Batman _ . "Yeah, well, you know me, I'll always find something to be anxious about." She shifted her bag and didn't meet his eyes.

"And what is it right now?" Bruce had these occasional moments of expressing concern about the emotional lives of those around him, but he was especially nosy about hers, since her feeling anxious (and sometimes not taking her meds) sometimes resulted in outbursts of paranoia and violence on the part of others.

"Just...thinking about the long term. Maybe feeling a little burnt out with watching mobsters pop in and out of jail." She still couldn't look at him; he wasn't going to like that answer at all. But really, she  _ was  _ burnt out. She kept putting in untold numbers of hours watching the same people do illegal things with little to show for it.

She might not have been looking, but she could feel Bruce get tense. She could also tell that his thoughts had turned to Jason, with all the anger and frustration and sorrow that characterized his end of that relationship. "That's a dangerous way to be thinking," he finally said.

"I know," she answered. "That's why I'm seeing Dick."

Bruce nodded. "Alfred will be here at 2," he said.

"I'll be back by then," Eerie said and almost ran out the office door.

The walk to Amici's a few blocks from Wayne Tower calmed her immensely, and by the time she sat down across from Dick at the diner, she almost felt able to talk about the previous night. Almost.

"So," she said, scanning the menu, "what's your plans now that your latest girlfriend is in jail for trying to kill you?"

Dick snorted. "You didn't waste any time bringing that up."

"I see no reason to dance around the issues," Eerie said, smirking at him.

Dick sat back in his chair. "Actually, I'm thinking about trying to keep Haley's in Gotham. As a permanent attraction."

"That would be good. Damian misses you."

"He said that?"

"Oh God no, but he's been extra insolent since you've been traveling."

A waitress took their orders and menus, and Dick leaned forward to settle his arms on the table. "So what did you want to talk about?"

Eerie sighed and leaned forward too. "I ran into someone last night," she began. "Jason."

Dick's eyes got a little wide. "I mean, I knew Babs had run into him during the whole Owls thing, but I figured he was long gone. What did he want?"

Eerie shrugged. "He wants my help on a case he's working. A mystical thing. I couldn't find much in the databases about the groups he mentioned, but what I did find seemed to corroborate his claims that there's some evil things wandering around without their usual incentives to not do something extra bad."

"What did you tell him?"

"That I needed to think about it."

"And now that you've thought about it?"

Eerie didn't say anything for a few long seconds. "If anyone else was offering me a consulting gig," she said, "I'd take it in a heartbeat. I need to get out of Gotham for a while. Bruce and Damian have been even more..." she paused to search for a word.

"Crabby?" Dick offered, smiling.

"Yes, crabby, since the Owls thing, Damian because he saw his father as vulnerable for the first time, and Bruce because his son saw him as less-than-perfect and he doesn't know what to do about it. It's grating on my nerves."

"I can sympathize," said Dick, "but it's not just anybody."

"No, it's not."

Another pause, then Dick asked, "How was he?"

"Okay, I think. I guess he's working with Arsenal and Starfire now." Eerie paused to see how Dick would react to hearing that his former best friend and former lover had both taken up with a man who had tried to kill him, but his look of general concern never wavered. He looked down at his hands on the table before speaking. "You know, I always thought that given some time and, well, love, Jason would get back to his old self." And Eerie could see that; more than Bruce, more than either of his other adopted brothers, Dick believed that Jason was good, no matter how bad he acted. "I'm glad he's with Roy and Kori," Dick continued. "If anyone knows what it's like to be hurt and hurt others, it's them." He paused. "Are you going to join them?"

Eerie fiddled with her silverware before answering. "I think I want to. The case sounds interesting; it has nice, clear-cut good-and-evil objectives. But the idea of explaining to Bruce that I'm about to go off with Jason Todd is terrifying."

Dick nodded. "Yeah, he's not always the best at trusting other people's judgment. But Jason hasn't tried to kill any of us in a couple of years now, so Bruce is probably wondering how his prodigal son is doing. Beyond, you know, tracking his kills and watching him rise on Interpol's most wanted list."

"You're making me feel so much better about this."

"I'm not denying that Jason went kind of crazy for a while. And I can see now how Bruce's message to him in his will did not help with defusing the crazy."

"Yeah, calling someone 'broken' is never a good way to open dialogue."

"Well, emotions have never been Bruce's strong point. I think that's one of the reasons he was so keen to bring you on, back in the day. You gave him a way of understanding the emotional lives of others. His own as well, when it comes down to it."

"You mean I gave him a way to use the emotional lives of others in his crusade." Eerie was getting a little annoyed.

"For Bruce, it's the same thing," Dick said with a sad smile. "In any case, if you want to work with Jason, I'll back you up. I'll also tell you to sleep with a batarang and any number of other weapons under your pillow, if you sleep at all, but I'll back you up nonetheless." Dick's reassuring smile turned a little sheepish when he asked, "So which one of them is sleeping with Kori?"

Eerie raised an eyebrow. "Do you really want to know?"

Dick grimaced. "No, I guess I don't."

 

+++++

That evening, Kairos finished suiting up to find Batman hunched over the computer console, looking over her notes from the previous night's stake-out. "I think we're ready to move on the Helie Brothers," he said when he heard her footsteps behind him.

"Good," she said, "because I've picked up a consulting job, and I'll probably be gone for a while."

B never looked up from the screen. "The League again?"

"No," Kairos said and steeled herself with deep breath. "Red Hood."

B's fingers stopped moving on the keyboard. She could almost hear his teeth grinding. "Red Hood asked you to work with him?"

"Yes, he's taken up this magic-related case, but his trail on the bad guys has gone cold."

"You do realize that this is probably saving their lives."

"From what I can tell so far, these aren't guys who should be saved. Or even really have lives. We're talking ancient evil kind of stuff."

"That's...different for him." Kairos heard the implicit question; Batman wanted to know how Jason was, if he was ready to change, to return to the path of righteousness. She couldn't answer those questions, so instead she said, "I suppose so. He certainly didn't seem interested in encountering any Bats other than me." She hoped the message was clear, that Jason wasn't looking for revenge at the moment.

"This was what had you upset last night?"

"I wouldn't have called it 'upset’..."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Kairos walked around the big chair to lean against the console and face B. His cowl was up and his face was impassive, but she could see the thread connecting him to Jason was writhing around with the heat of his feelings. "Because you're not always super chill when it comes to issues involving Jason Todd," she answered, "so I went to talk to Dick first."

He at least seemed to see the sense in that; his jaw relaxed a hair. "And you're sure you want to take this job? That it's not a trap?"

"I may not be able to see what anybody feels towards me," Kairos replied, "but if this was a trap, I'd be able to see it in his connection to you and Dick and the rest. And it's just a consulting job. It'll be like a working vacation."

"It is not  _ just _ a consulting job."

"Superman tried to kill you once, and you didn't have a problem when I took a couple of days to help him out."

B didn't like her bringing that up, and really, Eerie knew it wasn't fair. But Batman lost all claims to objectivity as soon as Jason was the topic of conversation. "How long will you be away?" he asked.

"No idea."

"We can't really count this as vacation days, then," he said. "You'll have to take an unpaid leave of absence. I'll tell anyone who asks that you're caring for a terminally-ill friend."

If he was thinking about her front as Wayne employee, she had won. "I don't mind," she said. "It's not like my expenses are even close to matching the exorbitant amount you pay me to watch you talk to people. I got a lot in savings."

B let out a breath. "I don't like this," he said. "I want a check-in from you every three days with your location. If anything happens, contact me or Dick immediately. And I will be following your credit card transactions."

Kairos sighed a little. "For someone who told me that I was  _ not _ another adopted child, you're acting a lot like a dad right now."

"No," he said, "I'm acting like a team leader sending a soldier into an unknown and possible dangerous situation."

"You're not sending me, I'm choosing to go." Kairos wanted this distinction to be very clear.

"That may be so," Batman said, sounding just a little chagrined, "but I would like to know how Jason is."

 

+++++

 

Eerie waited until she got back from patrol to dig the phone out of her cape and call the pre-programmed number. "Yes," said a voice on the other end of the line.

"Red Hood?"

"Who the fuck did you think you were calling?"

"I'm in."


	3. Chapter 3

Jason finished making arrangements with Kairos, then tossed the burner off into a pile of junk in the corner of the room. This safehouse was small, really just big enough for a cot and a couple of boxes of supplies with a toilet in an alcove, but Jason hadn't done a great job of keeping in clean during his stay.  _ Have to take care of that tomorrow _ , he thought as he reached for his real phone and called Roy. No surprise that Roy didn't pick up; Jason wasn't sure what time it was on the island, but even if Roy wasn't asleep, he and Kori were probably humping like rabbits. He left a message at the beep. "Roy, it's Jason. Kairos is on board. Pick us up at midnight at the entrance to Presby State Park outside Gotham." Then, Jason went back to sleep.

Normally, a person might spend a free day in their hometown revisiting old haunts, but Gotham didn't hold many good memories for Jason. He went out for chili dogs at one point, but the rest of the day was spent in the safehouse, sharpening knives, cleaning guns, and doing general maintenance on his gear. It was about an hour until sunset before he got around to cleaning up the place so it wouldn't be a complete wreck the next time he dropped in. He spent a couple of hours renewing some of his contacts as Red Hood, which largely involved dropping in on people and scaring the piss out of them. Everyone knew that Red Hood wasn't in Gotham all the time now, but Jason liked to encourage the idea that he could be watching at any moment. Then he stole a car and drove out to Presby Park. 

He had just settled himself on the hood of said car to wait when Kairos came out of the shadows. He had figured she'd get there early to make sure it wasn't a trap. At least she had listened to his instructions to pack light; she carried a green backpack and nothing else. "I wouldn't have pegged you for a green backpack kind of person," he said by way of greeting.

She shrugged. "If I had to wear dark gray all the time, I'd shoot myself." She set the backpack on the ground and settled onto the hood with him.

Red Hood looked around, but didn't see another vehicle anywhere. "How did you get out here?"

"Nightwing gave me a lift."

Red Hood couldn't keep the sneer out of his voice. "Dickie-bird didn't want to stick around and say hello."

"Honestly, I think he was more worried about the possibility of running into Starfire than the prospect of seeing you."

He was a little taken aback, but he guessed it made sense. After all, seeing a girl you had proposed to who had completely forgotten about you  _ and  _ taken up with a former best friend? That would majorly suck.

There was a silence that wasn't entirely comfortable. Finally Kairos said, "About our whole no-killing-until-I-know-the-guys-are-evil deal?"

_ Just like a bat to worry about that _ , thought Jason. "What about it?"

"Well, you said you kept promises, not deals."

Red Hood couldn't help but laugh. "You're about to go on a mission with known killers and wanted fugitives, and you're worried about fucking semantics?"

She didn't back down. "You want me because of my skills, and my skills mean that I see the effects of words on the material world more clearly that almost anybody else. Yes, I worry about semantics."

"Fine, you want me to promise not to kill anybody until you say it's okay?"

"At least not anybody I help you track down."

That was an interesting distinction, and it definitely gave Jason some leeway none of the other bats would have tolerated. "Okay, I promise not to kill anyone that you help us track down until you verify for yourself that they are, in fact, pure evil."

Kairos nodded, satisfied. They settled into another uncomfortable silence. Red Hood started to wish he hadn’t given up smoking just so he’d have something to do. “We got a couple of ground rules,” he said, just to say something. “Everybody cleans up after themselves, so do your own dishes. We trade off who cooks dinner, so you’ll have to take your turn. And if you want to keep booze, keep it in your room. Roy’s a recovering alcoholic.”

“Where did you get this car?” Kairos asked suddenly.

“Stole it.” Kairos glared at him, and he glared back. “What?” he snapped. “I had to get out here somehow, and I left some gas money in the glove box. The park guys will find it tomorrow and call the cops, and they’ll get it back to the owner all in one nice piece.”

Kairos continued to glare but didn’t say anything. Luckily, Roy picked that moment to land the ship in the clearing in front of them. Red Hood stalked toward the boarding ramp, and Kairos picked up her bag and followed. Roy and Kori had already spun their chairs around to see the new recruit, and Jason flopped onto one of the supplies chests that formed a bench against the wall as he said, “This is Roy Harper, aka Arsenal, and Princess Koriand’r, aka Starfire. This is Areopagitica Rice, aka Kairos.” He supposed he should have waited to see if she wanted to give her name or not, but she had annoyed him with the whole thing about the car, and really, it wasn’t fair for her to have the upper hand on them. Plus, he’d practiced saying her first name in the safehouse earlier.

“Area-what-tica?” Roy said.

Kairos waved it off with her hand. “My parents were Milton scholars,” she explained. “I go by Eerie. It's nice to meet both you."

"You too," said Roy. He looked over at Jason. "Where to, boss?"

"Back home for now," Jason answered. "We gotta do some research before Kairos can work her magic."

"Alrighty," Roy replied. "Eerie, I pride myself on the smoothness of my flights, but you should probably sit down."

 

+++++

 

Eerie was definitely feeling overwhelmed. Jason had mentioned the alien spacecraft that was their primary mode of transportation and the deserted island that served as a secret base, but hearing about it and experiencing it were two different things. Roy chattered about all the different modifications he had made to the much larger space ship that Kori (and now Roy and Jason) lived in as he gave her the grand tour, ending in front of what were to be her quarters. Jason had disappeared soon after they had touched down; his negative feelings about Gotham were at the forefront of his mind, and Eerie guessed he needed some time to decompress. Or go kill some things.

"So you can settle in here," said Roy. "We'll probably all be sleeping for a few hours, and when you're up and ready, I'll be happy to show you around the computer system. Not that I think you don't know how to use computers," he added quickly. "It's just, you know, alien." He fiddled with his hat.

"Thanks," she said. "I'll have to see what kinds of contacts I have that could be useful." She went in the room that was hers without looking back. 

It was small but serviceable. The only piece of furniture was a bed, but she didn't really think she would need anything else. The blank walls didn't really look like they were part of a spaceship. Sitting her bag on the bed, Eerie pulled out her new cell phone. Her old one had been strictly for her civilian life, left at home during any mask activities. But given that Bruce was expecting regular check-ins, he had presented her with a specially encrypted device that Tim had developed. If had a civilian mode and a mask mode that were kept completely separate, requiring a number of passcodes to switch between. She couldn't even pretend to know know how it worked, but it was easy enough to activate the GPS signal and type a quick message to the Batcave computer with the attached coordinates before giving her Twitter feed a quick scan for anything worth filing away for future reference.

That done, Eerie removed the various pieces of her costume, took her various pills, and lay down in the bed to attempt some sleep. It wasn't easy; her mind kept running through what-ifs and possible future conversations with her temporary teammates. Especially Jason. Eerie had been around during his play for taking up the cowl after Bruce’s supposed death, but she had heard about Jason’s actions only second-hand from Dick, Tim, and Damian. Dick, at least, had turned to her for help making sense of it all; he hadn’t understood why Bruce’s message was so upsetting for Jason. Eerie still rolled her eyes when she thought about that, but really, what could you expect from a bunch of folks who judged mental wellness based on how badly a person hurt other people while wearing a costume?

Eerie had spent the short ride to the island studying Jason out of the corner of her eye. His relationship with Roy and Kori (who were definitely sleeping together, but something was off there) was strong, and it looked like he and Tim had been in contact recently, an exchange that had left Jason with good feelings about the younger former Robin. She had noticed that when he brought Dick up back in the park, her answer about Kori had calmed the sudden burst of jealousy she had seen. He definitely still hated Damian, but it didn’t look like he was interested in hurting the kid. But what was much more interesting was his relationship with the dead woman Ducra; given the intertwining bits of respect, resentment, fear, and admiration, Eerie guessed the woman had been a teacher, perhaps one of the All-Caste Jason had mentioned before. If that were so, his vendetta against the Untitled wasn’t entirely philanthropic, and for some reason, knowing that Jason did in fact have some personal reasons for wanting to take the evil guys out made the whole thing feel more, well, normal. It meant that Jason Todd hadn’t completely changed in the few years since Eerie had last encountered him, which would be a cause for concern.

Eerie rolled on to her other side in the small bed and forced her face to relax. Tomorrow, she would ask about Ducra and get some answers. She tried focusing on her breathing to get her mind to quiet a bit, picturing the intrusive thoughts as spiderlings floating away on their little silk tethers, and after a while, fell into a restless sleep.

 

+++++

 

"So did you have trouble talking her into it?" Roy asked Jason as the two ate eggs and toast the following morning. Kori had been gone when Roy woke up -- probably out swimming with some dolphins or something -- but Jason was cooking in the small kitchen area and grunted at Roy's sunny greeting.

"Not really," said Jason. "Maybe she wants out from under the Bat."

Roy made a noncommittal noise and shoveled more eggs in his mouth. While he knew a thing or two about overbearing mentors, he didn't know enough about Eerie to make a judgement. He just hoped that she could do what Jason thought she could do so they could get rid of the Untitled and then maybe Jaybird would chill out a bit. Not that he wasn't always intense, but Roy worried that Jason was starting to obsess over the Untitled like he used to obsess over Batman. Maybe for better reasons, but still.

"I'm starting to wonder if bringing her here was a good idea," said Jason, but before Roy could inquire further, the hatch to the communal room opened with  _ her _ on the other side. Compared to Jason and Roy, who had taken to wearing board shorts pretty much all the time on the island (Jason occasionally donned a t-shirt as well, like he had this morning), Eerie was overdressed in skinny jeans and a cardigan. Her hair was still damp, suggesting that she managed figuring out how to work the shower, but she had dark circles under her eyes. Roy could feel Jason glowering a bit beside him, so he said brightly, "Morning, Eerie! Want some eggs?"

"Yeah, thanks," she answered, "and some coffee if you have it."

"You'll have to make another pot," Jason said darkly. "Roy drank the last one."

Roy made a dismissive noise and bustled around, starting the coffee pot and fixing Eerie a plate of eggs and toast, which he sat next to Jason's spot at the table, forcing Eerie to sit on the bench next to him. He smiled as he went to stand beside the coffee pot, watching Jason visibly stiffen; that guy was seriously unnerved by the girl, though that might be because of her bat status. On the other hand, Roy had seen Jason have a relatively pleasant conversation with Tim Drake, so maybe it has less to do with her being a bat and more to do with her powers...

"Oh fuck," Roy exclaimed, "You can see everything we're thinking right now, can't you?!"

Eerie looked up startled, immediately realizing that Roy was talking about her. "It doesn't work like that," she said quickly. "I don't read minds. I just see relationships."

"Yeah, but that might as well be the same thing," Roy continued, narrowing his eyes a little.

"Geez, Roy, you knew this before she got here, and you're just now freaking out about it," said Jason, rolling his eyes.

"Well maybe I was thinking that she'd just be spying on the bad guys," countered Roy. "But you can see everybody, can't you?"

"Well, yeah," Eerie said. "It's not something I can  _ not  _ see. It's just there all the time, like the noise of the waves is here. But it's also not like mind-reading. For example, I can tell right now that Jason is annoyed with you, but I don't know exactly why. I also know that you're with Kori, but it's not like I can just rifle through your memories to pull out the naughty bits."

Roy blushed a little; the naughty bits were pretty naughty. But he pressed on. "But you still see things about people that they may not want to be seen."

"There's no getting around that," she answered. "But unless someone is a serious criminal or not saying something is going to result in people getting hurt,  _ I keep my mouth shut. _ "  

The last words had venom in them, and Roy realized that she must go through this a lot, not having people trust her. He felt a bit sheepish at his reaction and reached up to rub the back of his head. "Sorry, I guess I just didn't think this through," he said. "And I gotta lot of shit I don't want dug up."

"I've found that most people do," she answered. "Myself included."

The coffee was done, and Roy poured a mug as Eerie returned to her eggs. He looked at Jason as he set the mug down in front of her. "Roy Harper," Jason said, shaking his head. "Engineering genius one day, idiot the next."

Roy grinned. "You're leaving out the days where I manage to be both." He sat down across from Eerie. "So, I'm happy to show you our computers today, but it might help if I had some idea of what the plan is."

Eerie downed a big gulp of coffee before she could respond. "Well, that's a good question. I think I need some more information before I can really get started."

She looked expectantly at Jason, who heaved a sigh and began recounting the story from the beginning, when Essence appeared to him shortly after he and Kori had rescued Roy. He finished by explaining his suspicions about Essence after their last encounter and what had brought them to Gotham City in the first place. Eerie finished her eggs and toast while he talked and stared into her coffee cup a few moments after he finished. "So," she said finally, "it sounds like the best thing we have to go on is going to be the details from the fake-cop situation. It suggests that the Untitled will prefer positions of power in small communities. But we shouldn't rule out the affordances of large cities for going unnoticed." Jason shrugged. "Any idea how this works? I mean, are they taking up new bodies as needed, or are these the same unaging bodies from forever ago?"

Jason thought for a second. "Ducra and Essence have both aged, but not normally. But they've also been working to purge themselves of the evil of the well. Also, there was nothing to suggest that I would have been confronting a black woman as an Untitled, so my guess would be that the well granted them the ability to shape-shift."

"Okay," said Eerie. "That means that missing persons cases won't help, but instances of sudden changes in personality might, since that could highlight both the Untitled and the humans under their control."

"You do realize that we're looking for, like, twelve people in the entire world," Roy interjected. "Missing persons cases probably wouldn't have been good place to start."

"I know, but we can set up a few different parameters and look at the intersections," Eerie answered. "We just have to figure out the right parameters to be able to work down to a data set that's manageable." She turned back to Jason. "Did the Untitled or Essence mention anything else that might help us identify them?"

"Well, the fake cop lady did say something about eating my liver to learn everything I knew," Jason said.

Eerie looked pleased. "Excellent. Missing livers will definitely be documented." She shoved the last of the eggs and a final bite of toast in her mouth and downed the rest of the coffee, then looked expectantly at Roy, who smiled and said, "Let's go."

Jason stayed seated at the table, muttering something about them leaving their dishes for him to wash, and Roy led Eerie back through another hatch and down the hall to the computer lab/workshop he'd set up. When they entered the room, one of the hovering surveillance bots he'd been tinkering with flew up into his face and said, "THE ROY HAS ENTERED WITH UNKNOWN INDIVIDUAL. IS THIS ROY-FRIEND?"

"Yes, Eye-Bot, Kairos is designated as Roy-Friend," he said to the bot, which immediately gave Eerie a good once over. To her, he said, "I've been working on beefing up our security here. Only a matter of time before folks figure out that we call this home."

"Batman already knew," she answered, staring back at the bot. "He keeps really close tabs on Jason. But it's not in the League files yet."

"Good to know," said Roy as he sat down at the computer. "So how are you with computers?"

"I use what Batman and friends give me and I don't ask questions." Eerie pulled a second chair up to the monitor.

Roy spent the next hour explaining how to do things on the system Crux had designed and he had modified (explaining about Crux in the process). Then, as Eerie started making her initial inquiries, Roy started trying to connect her phone to the Omni, after Eerie explained to him the dual operating systems in the vaguest terms possible. She wasn't kidding; she didn't really know anything about computers. 

As he tinkered with it, admiring handiwork that he assumed was Drake's, he asked, "So what are you going to look at first?"

"Well," Eerie started, "through Batman I have access to international police reports anywhere they get filed electronically, so I'm setting up a search for homicide victims with missing livers where it doesn't look like organ harvest was the goal. Then I'm going to set up a search of the League's UFO files for reports of shapeshifters, and then look at the overlap."

"The League keeps UFO files?" 

"Yeah, they have a whole server that collects and evaluates UFO reports and possible ET sightings, and sometimes a Leaguer goes to check out the ones that seem most credible."

"But you're not a League member, are you? So how do you have access to their files?"

"I do consulting work with them in exchange for access."

"What kind of consulting?" Roy was finished with the phone and set it on the console by Eerie before leaning against it himself. "You, like, spy on people for them?"

Eerie looked up at him and shrugged. "Kinda, I guess. Most extraterrestrial work. For my last case, one of the Green Lanterns took me out to some big interplanetary trade negotiation between two factions with a long history of hostility. He was worried about the way the two primary representatives kept delaying a decision. Turned out to be a real Romeo and Juliet story; the two reps had secretly been engaged for years, and so the negotiations were about personal issues more than economic ones."

"Did it work out?"

"Dunno, after I figured that out, Lantern sent me home."

That sounded like the League alright: use a person then dump 'em. But Roy had decided long ago not to dwell on it, especially when Waylon gave him the choice of forgetting or forgiving. He was much better at forgetting.

  
  



	4. Chapter 4

The next couple of days proceeded much as the first had: Eerie sat in front of the computer and did research while Jason beat himself up for thinking bringing her here was a good idea. When Roy cornered him in the training room to ask what was bothering him, Jason shrugged it off, citing fatigue and paranoia. But he couldn't help thinking about how exposed he and Roy and Kori were, not just to people finding them and bringing them to "justice" (whatever the hell that meant), but also to their own messed up emotions. Eerie was bad news, and he was the one who had put his friends in danger.

At the center of it all was the fact that he couldn't figure out why Eerie would take this job in the first place unless Batman asked her to. Red Hood had some resources, but he had no way to repay her for services rendered like the stupid League. The only explanation was that she was there as a spy. Probably to help Batman get Jason "help." 

He'd die before he went back to Arkham.

"What are you brooding about?"

Kori's voice interrupted his thoughts, and Jason looked up to see the alien princess in her favorite purple bikini crossing the sand to where he sat in the palm shade. "I'm not brooding," he replied sulkily.

"Your eyebrows are furrowed, your shoulders are hunched, and you're frowning," she said. "Is that not brooding in humans?"

“I'm just... I'm having some regrets about bringing Kairos in," Jason admitted.

"Why? So far, it looks to be a good plan. And Eerie is nice. And I like the food she cooks." Eerie had made vegetarian tacos the night before and Kori had eaten five.

"It seemed like a good idea," Jason said, "but I can't figure out why she would take this job unless she's spying on us.”

Kori sat down in front of him. "Maybe she likes you." Jason rolled his eyes; that didn't even deserve a response. Kori pushed on. "She seems to like me and Roy, so why not you?"

"Well, I did try to kill her boss and a couple of her friends and the kid she tutors that she must feel some kind of affection for or else why the hell would she keep that job!" Jason was breathing hard.

Kori's odd green eyes bored into his own equally odd green eyes. "You keep bringing up the past as an excuse for the present. You should stop doing that."

Jason had to look away. "Humans don't work like that, Kori."

Kori sighed and started to stand. "Well, if you refuse to work like that, I'd suggest you ask Eerie why she's here."

 

+++++

 

"Hey, I think I've just about got a field --" Eerie started.

"Why are you here?" Jason coupled the interrogation with his best bat-stare.

Eerie swiveled in the computer chair to face him. "To help you find the Untitled," she answered calmly.

"That's not what I meant."

"I know," she said. There was a long pause while she rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. "Honestly, I was bored. Well, more than bored. Ennui had set in." Another pause. Eerie looked at the floor instead of Jason. "An existential crisis of the alternate identity. Too many nights on the rooftops, too few arrests -- you know how it is. But your case has clear cut objectives, and it's something different, a bit of a challenge. I just...I needed a vacation. That doesn't mean I'm not taking this seriously," she added quickly, glancing up at him. "But I really wanted to get out of Gotham for a while."

Jason was pretty sure she was telling the truth, which made him worry he should be more suspicious. "So Bruce didn't send you?"

"Oh God, no. He wanted to forbid me, but he and I laid out the parameters of our relationship long ago."

Jason snorted. "Yeah, because Bruce is great with boundaries."

"It helps when you're an adult when he first takes you under his metaphorical and literal wing," Eerie replied. "It's a lot harder in other ways, but not having Bruce as my weird father figure was worth it." She met Jason's eyes. "Bruce does want to know how you are. And he's having me check-in with GPS periodically, but he already knew you guy were camped out here."

Jason wanted to be angry -- at Eerie and at Bruce -- but he wasn't surprised and actually realized that he had expected this. Instead he said, "Apart from the GPS, what are you going to tell him?"

It was a loaded question, and Jason knew that when he asked it. After Roy's outburst the other morning, Jason had realized that the bats probably treated her with the same distrust he’d expect if he ever returned to the fold. He even felt a little bad when he saw a sliver of hurt on her face as she said, "I keep my mouth shut."

Jason nodded and tried to lighten the mood his paranoia had dumped on both of them. "Well, if all you want out of this is a vacation, you came to the right place. We've got sun, sand, and plenty of hot young bodies walking around, as long as you're into human men and alien women."

Eerie shrugged. "The island is beautiful, but beach isn't really my thing. At least it's blissfully void of pissy twelve-year-olds."

Jason actually laughed. "I hear you're tutoring the Demon Spawn. How does that work?"

"The tutoring part isn't so bad now that I've convinced him that I do know more than him in the areas I'm teaching. It's really everything else that sucks lately." Eerie shook her head and turned back to the computer. "But I'm on vacation and I have made some progress with my vacation mission. I think I've got a few ideas of where to start the fieldwork."

Jason sat down beside her as she pulled up her list, Cherbourg, France at the top. "Where’s Cherbourg?" he asked.

"It's a small coastal city in Normandy, across the channel from the UK. It hit on the Justice League's UFO list for multiple shape-shifter sightings, none corroborated. There have also been two murders in the last 15 years where the victim's liver was removed. One was a former mayor's secretary. The other was a detective.

"Sounds like someone has something to hide," said Jason. "Why's it on the top of the list?"

Eerie shrugged. "I think it'll be easiest. Of my top twenty suspected locations, thirteen are small towns where we would be very suspicious. Five others are large cities, including Bludhaven, where narrowing down suspects would be hard. Of the last two, Cherbourg has the most evidence of Untitled presence, so it's at the top of the list."

Jason stared at her. "You've narrowed it down to twenty locations?"

Eerie shrugged again and said, "I'm not as good as Tim, or even Bruce, but I can detective. Besides, this was basic quantitative research methods: what do I want to know, how can I measure it, what tools do I have to measure it, and so on."

Jason snorted. "I forgot how fucking  _ educated _ you are."

"Well excuse me for my previous life choices," Eerie spat back, clearly offended.

Jason raised his hands defensively. "Sorry, I didn't mean anything by it. There just aren't a whole lot of college graduates in my social circle, and you guys talk weird sometimes."

Her shoulders relaxed. "Yeah, I get that a lot. Part of the reason I went to grad school was to not have to deal with regular people."

"News flash, you're still not dealing with regular people. Regular people don't have work uniforms made of kevlar and masks."

Eerie smiled, and Jason grinned back. "So, let's talk France," he said.

 

+++++

 

Eerie had kind of expected Jason to want to leave for Cherbourg immediately; him bursting into the computer lab to interrogate her only confirmed her previous impression that he could be somewhat impetuous. It also confirmed her previous impression that he could be really scary, but he had acted markedly more friendly since airing his worries that she was just Bruce’s spy.

Instead, Jason insisted they take a couple of days to prepare. “We’re going to need an excuse for wandering around town and talking to people, right?” he had said. “So, we’ll go as tourists, and that means booking a hotel and getting a French phrase book and all that shit.

“I know a little French,” Eerie had said.

“Bruce made me learn a whole lot of French,” Jason answered, “but we’ll learn a lot more from people talking if we pretend to know nothing.”

Eerie had booked two rooms at a nice Cherbourg hotel for a week on her credit card, so Bruce would know where she was headed next. “We’ll pose as two couples traveling together,” Jason had said. “I mean, that won’t be hard for Roy and Kori, and I’ll sleep in the floor if you want.” She had shrugged at the time, willing herself not to calculate how long it had been since she had slept next to anyone.  _ God I hate it when I act like such a teenager, _ she thought as she felt her whole body flush. 

But that hadn’t felt nearly as awkward as having to tell Jason that she wouldn’t be much help in combat situations

“What do you mean you’re not much of a fighter?!” he had almost yelled. “You work with fucking Batman, don’t you?”

“Yeah, well, I went heavy on the  _ detective _ and light on the  _ crime-fighter _ in my training,” she answered huffily. “Fighting is not one of my natural talents, but I do have some self-defense training. It’s just more a fight-for-flight kinda thing; my priority is getting away, not putting bad guys down.”

Jason had just rolled his eyes and practically dragged her to the training room to send her through virtual combat simulations at increasing levels of difficulty. She managed the first few levels fine -- she wasn’t completely useless, especially with run-of-the-mill thugs -- but later on the challenge became how long she could avoid getting pinned down before Jason went to the next scenario. They were definitely in double digits somewhere before she just flat-out lost, and when the sim shut off, Eerie was embarrassed to see that Roy and Kori had been scrutinizing her performance as well as Jason. At least if her face was red from exertion, they couldn’t see her blushing.

The Outlaws talked in quiet tones while Eerie wiped some of the sweat from her face with her cowl. Finally, Jason said, “Well, you’re not an asset in a fight, but you’re not a liability either. Roy’s going to show you how to pilot the ship to free the rest of us up for combat as needed.” 

Eerie had looked around at their faces, trying to see how they felt about the situation. Roy was grinning broadly; he really loved talking to people about tech stuff. Jason looked, well, not angry. Eerie still found Kori largely unreadable, but all doubts about whether or not the alien princess liked her flew out the window when they went on a pre-undercover shopping trip. "It is so nice to have another girl to try on clothes with!" Kori squealed as she pushed Eerie into a changing room with an armful of expensive items. 

While Eerie and Kori made the purchases to make them look like tourists (like suitcases, for starters), Jason and Roy planned their travel. Taking the ship was a necessity; if things went the way they went last time, the Outlaws and their consultant were going to have to make a quick escape to avoid lynching. However, Cherbourg did not feature the kind of skyscrapers that made hiding an alien spaceship easy. Roy ended up rigging an auto-pilot system so he could call the ship to their position when needed and Jason purchased a shipping crate just big enough for the ship near the train station. They would just have to wait for a train to arrive with passengers and jump into the crowd. 

Unfortunately, the plan required them to spend the night in the crate, and Eerie was not looking forward to the cramped quarters, even if it was just for a few hours. Roy was fine, but Kori exuded waves of emotion in a way that Eerie found exhausting both as a reader of emotions and as an introvert. And Jason...well, Jason was good at keeping to himself at least, but she didn't like the way she was starting to always know where he was.

It was around 3 in the morning local time when Roy maneuvered the ship into the crate and Jason closed and locked the door behind them. Eerie had just settled in with her laptop to continue her research on the missing livers when Jason grabbed her bags as well as his own and motioned her out the hatch. She followed without saying anything until the ramp closed behind her. "What are we doing?" she asked. "I'm trying to get a little work done."

"I know," said Jason, "but Kori is about to be bored, and when Kori gets bored, she and Roy go at it. I figured, if they're in the ship, there's at least two sets of walls to dampen the sound." He almost looked embarrassed.

"Oh," Eerie said. She had honestly been trying very hard to not look the connections between Roy and Kori.

Jason spread out a sleeping bag and set up a small lamp. "This thing has a outlet, if you need more juice for the computer," he said, gesturing to it as he lay down. "And there's another sleeping bag in my suitcase if you want it.”

She dug it out and, after folding it a few times, sat down with her back against the side of the crate and her laptop in front of her. Less than a minute later, the noises started.

"Oh God," said Eerie, "are they always that loud?"

"Unfortunately," answered Jason without moving. "Roy made sure to put you in a room far from theirs while we were on the island, but you'll just have to deal with it while we're here." He sounded a little defensive, and Eerie could see the line that connected him to the two lovers swell and shine.

"It's fine," she said quickly. "I'm glad they're enjoying themselves."

She dove into her research and completely lost herself in sorting through various news reports and official documentation of the killings they were here to investigate. Along the way, she had assumed that Jason had fallen asleep; his breathing was deep and steady, and she hated that she had noticed. Which meant that she almost jumped out of her skin when, after a half an hour of silence on his part, Jason said, "What are you working on?"

After a couple of deep breaths, Eerie answered. "I've been going over everything I can find about these missing liver victims, trying to find a suspect."

"And?"

Eerie sat up from where she had been hunched over the computer, and her back cracked audibly. "The first victim was the mayor's secretary. That particular mayor, Daniel Jouanne, remained in office for a few more years, then retired to a life of giving speeches, attending dinner parties, and advising younger politicians and civil servants."

"Sounds like that could be our guy."

"Yeah, except that Jouanne went missing four years ago, presumed drowned during his semi-weekly swim in the Channel. The second missing liver victim was Marc Valarde, the detective who continued to look into the case."

"Was this Jouanne guy ever under suspicion for the secretary's murder?"

"There isn't a single word from the press or the police files to suggest that."

"That's really suspicious."

"I agree. So maybe the Untitled was Jouanne for a while, but then Jouanne got old. So it faked Jouanne’s death and took on a new identity, which then killed Valarde."

Eerie waited for Jason to say something. The little lamp did not give enough light to read his features by, especially with the domino mask; they had agreed to stay in uniform in case someone stumbled upon their crate. At least, Jason and Eerie had stayed in uniform...

Finally, Jason said, "We should start at the police department. Any ideas for how we can do that?"

Eerie thought for a second. "It'll depend on the building; I've done some daytime surveillance from air vents before, but I don't really know what to expect here." She thought for another second. "The other option would be to go in as civilians. Since Wayne Enterprises has started this Batman Inc. initiative, I'm sure Mr. Wayne's personal assistant could find some reason for needing to research the law enforcement tactics used in rural France."

Jason snorted. "I thought you wanted to get away from being Bruce's fucking gopher."

"Yeah, well, if it'll get us in the building..."

Jason let the silence stretch again, then said, "What are the limitations of your powers? Like, where would you need to be to see if something is wrong with somebody?"

"I have to be able to see them even if it's just with binoculars. It helps to be in earshot, too, but it's not necessary."

"So we’ll have to get in the building."

"Yeah."

Another silence. Eerie started to go back to the computer to pull up the Cherbourg police roster when Jason asked another question. "Why do you have to be able to see them?"

"I don't really know," she answered kind of absentmindedly as she searched for the roster. "I think that I can kind of sense the emotions and relationships around me, but being able to see a person brings  _ their _ relationships into focus."

She had found the roster and was looking over it when Jason said, "It sounds kinda shitty.

"Hm?" 

"Your powers. It sounds kinda shitty having to deal with everybody else's drama all the time. Having to see how people feel about you all the time."

"I'm spared that at least. I can't see how anybody feels about me."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I have to do it the old fashion way where I have to look at body language and what people actually say. Sometimes, I have to ask a friend to call another friend while I'm on the third line being really quiet and the first friend gets the second friend to talk about me..."

"Somebody has been watching too much  _ Mean Girls _ ." 

"Maybe, but I have thought about trying it."

"You could get Dickie-bird to be your mole since you guys are like BFFs."

"No thanks. I love the guy, but he attracts drama."

Jason went silent again, then said, "You should try to get a little sleep. Staring at the screen too long with rot your eyeballs out."

Eerie took his advice -- her eyes were starting to burn -- and spread the sleeping bag on on the floor a couple of feet from his. She listened to his steady breathing until hers matched as she drifted off.


	5. Chapter 5

The trip from the train station to the hotel went smoothly, as did check-in. The hologram device that Roy rigged up for Kori worked perfectly, and no one gave any of them a second glance. Jason was glad for that; since they weren't really sure what their plan was yet, the longer they could go without making any kind of impression the better. 

The two rooms were across the hall from each other, and Roy shut the door behind him and Kori after muttering something about taking a nap. Jason didn't mind. Until he and Eerie had some idea of what they were looking for, Roy and Kori were free to do whatever they wanted. He tossed his bag into a corner of the room he and Eerie would share as he looked around. Big bed, desk with comfy chair, small sofa, large glass doors with a balcony. Eerie had even managed to snag them rooms on the top floor, so they had easy access for mask work. It would do just fine.

Eerie had already managed to pull out her laptop and was sitting cross-legged on the bed with it in front of her. Jason flopped down on the bed next to her and said, "You never take a break, do you?"

"Sure I do," she answered without looking up from the screen, "but only after I have some results."

"You take this whole consultant thing really seriously," he said, pulling the screen over so he could see what she was looking at. Police roster, with ranks and start dates.

"Well, you take this seriously, so I think I should too."

"You're not having second thoughts the closer we get to killing someone?"

"No," she said without hesitation, looking straight at him. "First of all, according to all the information you've given me so far, we won't be killing a person. Second, I trust you to keep your word." 

Jason found himself quickly looking back down at the screen, even going so far as to scroll through the list a little. He hadn't often had anyone say that they trusted him, much less one of the bats. It was a little overwhelming, and he needed to get her eyes off him. "Any thoughts on this roster?"

She pulled up another document on the screen, this one with a man's photo along with his stats. "I figured the logical place to start is with some of the higher-ups. This guy, Paul LeRoi, is the equivalent of the commissioner, and he took his position right after Valarde's death, so I think that makes him worth checking out. But really," she continued as she pulled up another list, also with photos, "it would be worth getting eyes on all eleven of these ranking officers."

Jason nodded. "It's a place to start," he said. "Tonight let's scout of the police building, see if you'll be able to get in there for daytime surveillance or if we'll need to plan something else." Suddenly his stomach growled audibly. "I need some food. You hungry?"

"Yeah, but can you just bring me something back? I want to keep working on this for a little while longer." Eerie smiled sheepishly.

Jason just rolled his eyes and left her to her work.

When he came back an hour later with falafel and curry, Eerie was curled up on one side of the bed, asleep. Jason took this chance to peruse the files she had left open as he ate his curry; he assumed that if she hadn't wanted him to look at them, she wouldn't have left them out in the open like this. The police roster and list of ranking officers was still open, but Eerie had also started constructing what Jason could only think of as a virtual case wall. The photos of the officers along with their names, ranks, dates of commission, dates of signing up with the force, etc, were arranged on a white background, and Jason found that he could zoom in and out as well as drag the different bits of information around. When he put things back the way Eerie had them, he could see that they were arranged in chronological order with a big red dot indicating Valarde's murder.

Jason was good at a number of skills needed in the vigilante business. He could intimidate. He could acquire information through coercion and force. He could send the occasional strongly worded message and he could take down bad guys like nobody's business. He could be patient, sitting all night on one ledge waiting for his target. But the detective stuff had never been his strong suit, and he admired Eerie's systematic study of the problem at hand. The way things were looking, they weren't going to need these rooms for more than the week they had booked them, if that long. He had felt less concerned about bringing Eerie in since their confrontation in the computer lab, but now he was actually feeling good. Maybe she was useless in a fight, but she had the right kind of mind for this kind of work.

Soon, the Untitled would be long fucking gone. Then maybe he could breathe again.

As he flopped on his side of the bed again, he let that thought lull him to sleep.

 

+++++

 

After night fell, Red Hood ordered Starfire to cover them from above as he, Kairos, and Arsenal made their way across the rooftops. "We're not expecting any trouble," he explained, "but let's make sure we see it coming from a mile away if it's there."

It was good to be out in the open night again, and Kairos felt some of her discomfort at being in cramped quarters fade as she swung to the top of police headquarters, Red Hood in front of her and Arsenal following. She started looking for vents that would suggest a system of heating and cooling ducts inside while Arsenal pulled out one of his gizmos. "Looks like we've got two individuals inside," he said, looking at the heat signatures coming from below them. "First floor." 

"Good," said Red Hood as Kairos continued to prowl around. "We can go in a window if we have to."

"We won't," Kairos called softly. She had found a good sized vent toward the back of the building and pulled a small multipurpose tool from her belt to remove the screws holding it on, but Red Hood brushed her aside when it came time to actually pull the heavy piece of metal from its place. She would have been insulted -- she could have done it herself given enough time -- but it was faster and easier to just let him do it.

Kairos took off her cape and hood and ran her hands around her belt, looking for anything loose that might snag. "Do you want me to come in with you?" asked Red Hood. She just stared at him; shoulders that broad were not meant to travel in air vents. "Well fuck you too," he said good-naturedly and synced their comms to the same channel. "Keep in contact at all times," he said. "We'll alert you if the guys in there move."

She nodded and hoisted herself into the vent, opting to slide down the vertical shaft feet first. It was about six feet deep, just enough that she had a little drop at the end, but otherwise, these ducts were perfect for her needs, wide with lots of vents for observation. She chose a direction at random. "Arsenal?" she said over the comm.

"Yep?"

"Can you follow my movements, maybe make a map?"

"Sure thing, I'll start tracking you. You just holler if you want me to put a marker somewhere."

This was going to be pie. She paused at each of the vents to see what she could see, using the binocular settings in her lenses to read the name plates on each desk, and instructing Arsenal to put markers when she could see names from her list of officers, most of which were on the third floor. She moved down to the second floor with another brief drop -- she'd have to be careful about the noise when she came back during the day -- where she found her primary goal, the commissioner's office. Conveniently, a vent ran right across the back of the room, so she'd be able to see all his visitors. It was like they had set the place up for surveillance.

After an hour and a half of exploring the vents (during which time the two figures on the first floor never moved), Kairos emerged from the roof vent again. "This is going to be pie," she said to Red Hood as he helped her out.

He didn't look as optimistic, but she guessed it was his job to take everything seriously. "There's not enough cover around here to come back during daylight, so we'll need to be here before sun-up. You wanna just wait here until people start coming in?"

"I need a few things from the hotel first."

Red Hood nodded and conveyed their plans to Starfire as they crossed the mile of rooftops back to the hotel. "See anything suspicious?" Hood asked when the alien princess landed on the roof with them.

"Nothing but stars and city lights," she answered pleasantly. "The air is much cleaner here than in the other cities where I've been."

Kairos heard Arsenal say something about manufacturing as she dropped down on the balcony of her room. She began digging in the false bottom of her suitcase for supplies -- mainly the urine collection bag that strapped to her lower leg covered by her boot. It was unpleasant, but necessary for surveillance any longer than a couple of hours since letting herself get dehydrated could have even worse consequences. She also found the water bladder that attached to the back of her suit and double checked the energy bars she usually kept in her belt. She filled the water bladder and made sure water came through the tube...and realized that everything was in order and sun-up wouldn't be for another four hours. She turned back to the urine bag to look it over again.

"You should take another nap," said Red Hood from behind her. She jumped and turned to see that Jason had stripped to the waist, including the domino mask under his helmet. "We got plenty of time, and if I have to watch you keep checking your equipment, I'll shoot you to put you out of your fucking misery."

"Sorry," she said automatically. "Just, I dunno, excited."

"Like a kid at Christmas, I'd say." Eerie pulled off her own mask and grinned at him. He grinned back, and she felt herself blush a little. Jason continued, "But I thought you were tired of sitting around just watching people."

"No, I'm tired of watching  _ mobsters _ . Looking for secret shape-shifters is a bit more fun." She paused. "Also, I like crawling through air vents. It makes me feel like a Solid Snake." She could tell the adrenaline was going to her head; she never would have said something like that a few days ago.

Jason rolled his eyes at her and wandered off toward the bathroom. "I'm gonna take a shower, and when I get back, you better not be checking your equipment again." 

Eerie waited until she heard the water running to strip her uniform and put on sweats and a tee. Jason was right; with the jet lag, another nap would be beneficial, no matter how much her brain was buzzing. She sent a quick check-in message to the Batcave, set an alarm for two hours later, and lay down on the bed. Focusing on her breathing, she pushed her busy mind gently toward a quieter place and was only vaguely aware when Jason got out of the shower and occupied his half of the bed. Her last thought before succumbing to sleep was to reflect that he had never even asked if it was okay to share.


	6. Chapter 6

"So?" Jason said as soon as Kairos dropped down on the balcony just as the sky got dark the following evening.

"Can you at least let me empty my urine bag first?" she said, walking straight to the bathroom.

Jason grimaced and followed. "Urine bag?" Sure enough, Kairos pulled off her left boot and from the leg of her suit removed a plastic bag full of yellow liquid.

"How else do you think I stayed in those air vents for ten hours?" she asked as she began emptying the liquid into the toilet.

"That's commitment."

She smiled a little but didn't look at him, concentrating on the task at hand. "Batman always said commitment was training for two hours every morning before work."

"Batman needs to pull his head out of his ass," Jason said without hesitation. "Okay, the urine bag is empty. What did you find out?"

"Geez, can't I change first?"

Jason growled and stalked out of the bathroom and around the room until Eerie came back out in civvies. "I got you some food," he said, gesturing toward a stack of take-out boxes. She looked in each of the boxes before selecting the croque monsieur with fries. Then she plopped down on the bed, opened her laptop and inserted a small card in the side. After a few seconds of watching the footage that started playing, Jason realized that this was the feed from her mask and cowl. "You talk to yourself while you watch people?"

"It's easier than trying to write it all down," she said, chewing on a bite of sandwich, "and this way, I have faces to put with everything instead of having to know or remember everybody's names."

"So what did you find?"

"I don't think our guy is in law enforcement," she said, scrolling through the footage with the audio muted. "All these folks seem to be normal. I mean, as normal as cops ever are." Jason felt his face fall. Back to square one. "But," Eerie continued, apparently finding the moment in the footage she was looking for, "this guy is most certainly weird." 

Jason watched the video. He recognized the commissioner from the photos Eerie had show him earlier, but the guy across the desk was a mystery. "Who is he?"

"Deputy Mayor Rene Georges. Apparently this meeting happens every day."

"Why would the deputy mayor meet with the commissioner every day?"

"Exactly," Eerie said through a mouthful of fries. "This guy is full of bad vibes. He stopped to talk to a few of the officers on his way out, and each and everyone of them exuded the same sense of, well, devotion, even when they were just exchanging pleasantries." 

Bingo, thought Jason. He got up and started pulling out his guns from their various hiding places.

"What are you doing?" asked Eerie.

"I'm going to pay Monsieur Georges a visit."

"No you're not."

Jason spun around and glared at her. "Who the fuck are you to tell me what I can and cannot do?"

"Someone you made a deal with," she answered in a level tone, but her body was tense. He was scaring her, but he wasn't sure if she was scared of him hurting her or if she was scared of him killing someone. She was right about the deal though; he had given his word not to kill anyone until she gave the go-ahead. You're such an idiot sometimes, Jay, he said to himself, while his face twisted into a sneer, disgusted by being caught in bullshit semantics. “Fine,” he spat, “then I’m gonna get drunk while you research all your stupid fucking shit!”

He made a point of slamming the door behind him as he stormed out, though he immediately regretted it. It did not fit with the low profile of two happy tourist couples they were trying to maintain. By the time he finished his first whiskey at the first bar he found, he regretted a lot more. Sure, Eerie was being kind of a whiny bat bitch, but she was trying to do the job right. And while he felt it in his bones that the deputy mayor was an evil piece of shit, it was possible what Eerie had seen was the result of the guy being well-liked. Giving her a couple more days to guarantee who the target was wouldn't hurt anything. Jason could be patient.

After his second drink, Jason realized that he also didn't like the idea that Eerie was scared of him. Sure, he had a temper and, sure, he'd tried to kill bats in the past, but that was long time ago, and besides, he'd never really hurt a member of his own team. Not that they were a team.

He paid his bill at the end of the third drink and decided to head back to the hotel with a peace offering. Whiskey, he had found, could smooth over any number of misunderstandings, and he exited the convenience mart with a terribly expensive fifth of bourbon -- American liquor was like gold here but he didn't know anything about the local brands. When he got back to the hotel room, Eerie was exactly where he expected her to be: sitting on the bed in front of her computer. She jumped a little when he came in. "Look," he said before she could make a sound, handing her the bottle, "I was an ass, so I brought you this." He had never been good at apologies, and he'd drunk enough not to be drunk per se, but a little fuzzy around the edges.

Eerie tentatively took the offering and pulled off the brown bag. "How did you know I like bourbon?" she asked, looking at the bottle.

"I didn't," he said, "but you work all the fucking time and you need to lighten up."

"I'm not sure you're the right person to be giving lectures about being obsessed with work," she said, "but I have a policy about never looking gift bourbon in the mouth." She unscrewed the lid and drank straight from the bottle. Jason was relieved; halfway home he had remembered that some people preferred mixing it with Coke or something, but Eerie didn't seem to mind it straight. She didn't even make a face. She screwed the lid back on and shifted the laptop so he could see the screen. "I've been looking into Georges..." she began.

"No," said Jason, "no work. Tonight, we drink." He shut the laptop and put the bottle back in her hands. She looked confused. "God," said Jason, "can we please just drink? We're friends, right? Friends drink together, right?"

He really didn't want to explain that he felt guilty about his outburst, that he really did want them to be friends. Luckily, Eerie didn't question further, taking another drink from the bottle, but she pulled it away when he reached for it. "You look like you're a few ahead of me," she said. "You have to let me catch up."

"I've merely taken into account our differences in weight and alcohol tolerance," Jason said, stretching to grab the bottle.

A couple hours later the bottle was missing over half its contents and Eerie was giggling uncontrollably as Jason told her about his former fighting mentor who was addicted to energy drinks. "And then he puked hot pink all over the car!" Jason concluded as Eerie laughed a silent, body-wracking laugh that mimicked sobs. "That dumb fucker needed that shit so bad, he didn't even realize that I had poisoned it," he said, then mentally smacked himself; talking about killing people always made bats mad. Eerie, however, was perhaps too drunk to notice his slip, as she continued her giggle fit. When she calmed down, she lay flat on her back, staring at the ceiling, hands grabbing at her short hair.

"What did he do?" she asked.

Shit. She had noticed. 

"Human trafficking. Child prostitution."

"Oh."

That was not the reaction he was used to getting. He braced himself for the lecture that always came, but Eerie just lay there scrunching her fingers in her hair, probably silently judging him. "What the hell is your problem?!" he spat.

She rolled over to look at him, hair sticking up and confusion all over her face. "What did I do?"

"I'd rather have the lecture than all this silent judgment bullshit."

"I'm not judging," she said plainly.

"Well why the fuck not?!" She was pissing him off, fucking with the rules.

She sat up, swaying just a little and closing her eyes like she was having to think hard about finding the words. "Batman espouses ideals that culturally we deem 'noble' or 'good' or 'just'." Jason could almost hear the scare quotes and scowled deeply; she was definitely using her I-have-a-college-degree voice. "We validate Batman's choices by telling ourselves that the means are just as important as the ends, that if we wanted a good democratic society then we have to rely on the democratic institutions in place. And I agree to a certain extent. But I also think that the culture that tells us that Batman's choices are 'right' is fundamentally flawed. It is sexist, racist, classist, homophobic, ableist, and a whole slew of other things." She opened her eyes and looked at him. "Simply put, Batman will never know what it is like to be a woman in the world. He will never experience the fear of going about everyday life that women sometimes do." She paused and looked away again. "I mean, this is just one thing among many; Bruce may have tried to give himself a full range of experiences, but he will never be black or gay or poor. And for these reasons, I'm not sure that I agree that he should have the authority to say what is 'right' all the time." She paused again, then searched around the bed for the bottle. "I can't believe I just said that," she said before taking a drink.

"Yeah, you're getting real fucking confessional," said Jason. But what she had said made sense; even in his days as Robin, he had chafed under Bruce's protection of criminals, in part because Bruce seem so far removed from the damage that the drug dealers and pimps did. He could talk about seeing the worst of Gotham, but it didn't really mean anything until you had lived it. His mind flashed to his mother with a needle in her arm, but he quickly pushed that away. Eerie nudged the bottle at him and said, "You're turn."

"Hm?"

"You're turn to confess something. And don't just tell me about something bad you did; you have to say something you're scared to say."

"The fuck I do!"

"Friends, right?" she said, waving the bottle in front of his face.

Jason glared but took the bottle. He thought for a second. "I...I regret going after the Robins," he said quickly and took a long drink. "It was a waste of my time," he finished, trying to maintain some sense of bravado. It didn't seem to matter; the next thing he knew, Eerie was on top of him, pressing her lips to his. She pushed her tongue into his mouth, and he found himself pushing back, dropping the bottle to grab her waist. Too long without, he thought as he felt a pressure in his pants, and ignoring the question of what exactly was going on or why, he resigned himself to an entirely pleasant fuck with a rather attractive woman.

Until Eerie suddenly broke off the kiss and pushed away from him. "Fuck!" she said repeatedly as she pulled her knees to her chest and pressed her face against them.

Jason jumped up off the bed. "What the hell did I do?!" he almost shouted.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry, I'm just...fuck...I just don't do casual sex and I don't know what this means and I've fucked it all up and I'm so sorry I'm such a fucking idiot and I don't know what the fuck I was thinking fuck fuck fuck now I'm having a fucking panic attack." Eerie had started pressing her body even tighter into her knees as she said this.

Jason blinked slowly and took a deep breath. The rest of it he had no idea about, but a panic attack was something he could handle. He sat back down on the bed and said, "Okay, take a deep breath in...now let it out slowly...deep breath in...now let it out..." Over and over he repeated until Eerie stopped looking like she was trying to keep her body together by sheer force of will. 

After about ten minutes, she looked up from her knees but still faced away from Jason. "Thanks," she said in a small voice.

"I saved Roy from mercenaries. It's nothing." He paused. "Do they happen often? The panic attacks?"

"Usually not, as long as I take my meds." 

"And have you been taking them?" The last thing he needed was her projecting weird emotional shit everywhere.

"Yes."

"Good," he said, feeling like a nurse maid. "It's time to go to sleep." He went to the bathroom and threw some water on his face after taking a piss. Holy shit, he thought. What a nightmare. Some part of him, the part that was convinced he was a completely irredeemable fuck-up, felt completely validated that kissing him had given someone a panic attack. The rest of him was just tired, too tired to think about the whole mess tonight.

When he came back out, he was relieved to find Eerie in the bed, curled up facing away from him. He self-consciously settled himself on the small sofa with his jacket as a blanket.


	7. Chapter 7

When Jason knocked on Roy and Kori's door the next morning, he wasn't the most hungover he'd been, but he wasn't feeling great either. More than anything he wanted to not be around when Eerie woke up; he was so not ready to deal with what had happened.

"Kori!" Jason heard Roy yell. "You can't answer the door like that!" Jason couldn't help but smirk a little when Roy cracked the door to peer out, obviously only wearing his boxers. "Something up?" he asked.

"I'm going out for food," said Jason. "You should check in on Eerie while I'm gone."

"What happened?" Roy was instantly serious, no longer hiding behind the door. "You should have told us something went wrong..."

"Nothing went wrong," Jason interrupted. "We just got shitfaced last night, and I don't know how she's gonna feel this morning. So you can go and wake her up and work your hangover magic, and Kori and I will go get some hangover food."

"Yes!" Kori called from behind the door. "I would like to go out!"

Roy grimaced. Jason knew he didn't like dealing with the fallout of other people's debauchery, but he had taken care of Jason enough times for Jason to know he was good at making hangovers go away. And Jason really couldn't deal right now. "Please, Roy?" he said, hoping his desperation wasn't showing.

Roy's eyes widened. Jason groaned internally. Roy stepped out in the hall and pulled the door shut behind him. "Something happened last night," he said. "What did you do?"

Jason rolled his eyes. "Nothing happened. We got drunk and talked shit about the bats."

"That's practically foreplay for you," said Roy. "You fucked her and now your regret it and you're sending me in there to clean up your mess."

"That did not happen. I'm just too hungover to handle getting puked on."

Roy stared at him dubiously. "Whatever, Todd," he finally said. "Let me put some pants on."

Kori pranced out of the room as Roy stalked back in. Roy had lectured her about the importance of selecting one look on the hologram device for the duration of their stay so as not to attract attention, but though she had kept the same dark brown skin and hair, her hairstyle and nail color changed multiple times a day. After giving her a quick once-over to make sure she hadn't chosen anything too drastic, Jason started down the hall.

Outside, Kori hummed a little under her breath as she peered around eagerly. Her good mood rubbed up against Jason's shitty one in the worst way possible, and he walked as quickly as possible toward the center of town. "For someone who spent so many years hiding from humans, you seem awful happy to be around so many of them," he said snidely.

Kori didn't rise to his baiting. "I hid from humans because some of them wanted to kill or enslave me. That doesn't mean I don't like visiting them occasionally."

Jason just huffed and walked faster. Kori, of course, didn't even look like she was working to keep up with him. After a few minutes of silence, Kori said, "I heard what Roy said earlier, that something happened between you and Eerie. Is it true?"

Jason actually growled. "I don't want to talk about it."

"I have said many times that you humans could avoid a great deal of pain and misunderstanding if you would stop being so embarrassed about having emotions," said Kori.

"Yeah, well, a significant number of humans that you've been around were raised by Batman, so stunted emotional development is pretty par of the course."

"That may be so," Kori continued, "but compared to my people, all humans are stunted."

"What's your point, Kori?"

"My point is that you usually only get this agitated when you're confronted with an emotion you aren't comfortable with."

"I said that I don't want to talk about it," Jason answered.

 

+++++

 

Roy knocked gently at the door to Jason and Eerie's room and, not hearing any sounds of life, let himself in. Eerie was sprawled in the bed, face pressed into a pillow at an impossible angle. Before waking her, Roy retrieved the trash can from the bathroom, just in case, then he crept up to the bed and shook her shoulder. She awoke quickly, if groggily. "Waz hap'nin'?" she said.

"Just wanted to see how you're feeling," said Roy.

Eerie groaned and pulled the blankets over her head. "Hungover."

"That's what Jason said. What kinda hungover are you? Gonna hurl?"

"I've never been a pukey drunk," she answered, "but I seriously need some water."

Roy was slightly relieved; so maybe he had made some mistakes, but he did not consider it his cosmic recompense to deal with other people's vomit. He retrieved a glass of water from the bathroom and sat it on the bedside table, then surveyed the room. If there was anything left of the bottle from last night, Jason had disposed of it. Jason was weird like that; he'd drag Roy into a bar for intel, but never left alcohol out where Roy might find it. Roy liked to think it was a sign of Jason actually caring for him, but it could also be that he needed to depend on him as a partner. When Roy looked back down, Eerie was still hiding under the covers, but the glass of water was drained. He refilled it in the bathroom and returned. "So what happened last night?" he asked.

Eerie actually sat up in the bed and took the glass from him this time. "I came in from my recon with a new lead. Jason wanted to run off and nail the guy immediately, but we have a deal, and I'm not sure this is the guy yet. Jason had an angry moment and stormed out. When he came back after having some drinks somewhere, he brought a bottle of whiskey as a peace offering." Eerie downed the second glass of water.

"And that's it?" Roy pressed as he took the glass again. 

"Yeah, there were some drunken stories, but that was about it.” She groaned. “I didn't take my meds last night." Eerie got out of bed and started digging in one of her bags. Roy refilled the water glass yet again, and when he got back Eerie had a number of bottles spread out in front of her. "Wow," he said. "You've got a mini pharmacy."

"Yeah, well, I've got my no anxiety pills, and my no allergy pills, and now my no hangover headache pills."

Roy made a noncommittal noise, handing her the glass of water. "So you guys just drank and told stories?"

Eerie finished taking her pills, but she looked flustered to Roy. "Why are you being so nosy?”

"Nothing," he said. "It's just that Jason was acting kinda funny this morning." His phone buzzed in his pocket and he pulled it out. "Speak of the devil, Jason wants to know what kind of hangover food you want."

"Fat and protein, with as much grease as possible," Eerie answered as she collapsed back onto the bed with a groan. "What do you mean that Jason was acting funny?"

Roy sent a reply text to Jason and sat down on the half of the bed Eerie wasn't sprawled on, grinning broadly. "Is this one of those high school does-he-like-me-or-not questions? Because if it is, you have to braid my hair."

"Fuck off, Harper," Eerie growled, pulling the covers back over her head. Roy grinned even wider; she sounded a lot like Jason.

"So you guys fucked," he continued. "It's not a big deal..."

"That did not happen."

"Well you're both acting like something did."

Eerie uncovered her head but still didn't look in Roy's direction. "I had a panic attack last night."

"Oh," said Roy. Well that made sense; she was embarrassed about showing weakness in front of Jason, and Jason was probably being awkward because having to deal with someone else's panic attack just reminded him of his whole slew of mental health issues. "Jason wasn't an ass about it, was he?"

"No, he was fine," she said quickly. "I'm just super awkward and now very hungover and would really like to crawl in a hole for a while." The covers went back over her head.

“It’s not a big deal,” Roy said. “We’ve all got our problems --”

“Roy,” Eerie cut him off, “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but I think I’d rather be alone right now.”

Roy shrugged even though she couldn’t see it and got up off the bed. “Sure thing, just be sure to drink some more water. Holler if you need anything.”

 

+++++

 

When Eerie woke up again, the pressure in her head had subsided somewhat, but all of her joints still ached. The amount of light in the room suggested that it was early afternoon, but that wasn’t what had woken her up; her phone had beeped from the bedside table, where she found another glass of water and a take-out container of eggs covered in cheese and half a baguette. She groaned a little when she saw it. It was perfect hangover food, but it had also probably been put there by Jason and a whole new wave of shame washed over her when she thought about him. _What the hell was I thinking?_ _Also, since when do I get drunk and randomly make-out with people?_

She checked the phone. A text from Dick:  _ You dead yet? _ Of course, Dick would know if something was really wrong because Bruce would tell him he hadn’t heard from her. This was Dick’s way of making sure everything was going smoothly and/or being nosy.

Eerie wrote back,  _ No, but I wish I was _ , before picking up the container of eggs. She couldn’t decide if her stomach felt that way because it was hungry or because she wanted to throw up. Tentatively, she took a bite of the eggs and decided it was hunger, but she’d only just had a second bite when the phone started ringing. She answered with a full mouth. “Hello?”

“Call me Mandy if you aren’t where you can speak freely,” said Dick seriously.

Eerie swallowed and said, “What?”

“Call me Mandy, like Bruce’s receptionist, if you are in a position where you cannot speak freely,” Dick repeated.

“Why would I be in a situation where I couldn’t speak freely?”

“Why do you wish you were dead?”

“I’m hungover! Geez, Dick, what did you think was happening?”

There was a pause on the other end of the line. “I was worried Jason had done something…” Dick trailed off. “Why are you hungover?”

“Jason threw a tantrum last night because I wouldn’t let him kill this guy, and he apologized with a bottle of whiskey.”

“You’re letting him kill people?!”

“Not until I determine they’re evil shape-shifting demon-type things.”

“Oh.” Another pause. “So everything is going okay?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Eerie said as she rubbed a hand down her face. She could tell Dick about what happened last night. Talking through it with someone would be good for her, but first of all, Dick wasn’t great with relationships and, second, she was not ready to deal with the Dick-drama fall-out of admitting she had the hots for Jason fucking Todd. She groaned inwardly as soon as she realized she had actually thought the phrase “the hots.” She kept talking to try to allay Dick’s suspicions. “We’re in France, I’ve been doing recon work, and I think we’ve almost got our guy.”

“Well, that’s good,” said Dick. “You sure everything’s okay?”

“What makes you think it’s not okay?”

“I dunno, we just haven’t heard from you, apart from your GPS pings.”

“I didn’t realize you were expecting phone calls every other day.”

“Hey, don’t get sassy with me,” said Dick evenly. “It’s just that usually you only get this withdrawn and secretive when you’re dealing with something, that’s all.”

Busted. It was true; she almost always stopped talking to people and withdrew into work when she was trying to figure out her own emotional life. It was the characteristic that she and Bruce shared, the one that annoyed Dick to know end.

Dick interpreted her silence for what it was, assent, and continued, “I don’t know what’s bothering you, and I’m not expecting you to talk about it right now, but when you’re ready to, I’m here, okay? Doesn’t matter what it is. We’re friends; we deal with each other’s shit, right?”

“Yeah, Dick,” Eerie answered after swallowing the ball of emotion that started rising up her throat. As much as she complained about Dick-drama, it had always been a two-way street, like the time her grad school girlfriend had dumped her for taking a job at Wayne Enterprises and becoming a corporate stooge. (Dick had helped egg her car.) She wanted to just blurt out what had happened; she could already imagine how, in a couple of years, they would have a big laugh about the time she got drunk and kissed Jason Todd. But talking about what had happened would mean talking about what Jason was like now, and that would mean telling things about him that weren’t hers to tell. She kept her mouth shut. “I need to drink some more water and get some food in my stomach,” she said finally.

“Alright,” said Dick, “take care, and call if you need me.”

Eerie’s stomach was in knots after the conversation, and she decided to take a shower before finishing the eggs. An hour later, dressed, fed, less achy, and with some modicum of her dignity, she knocked on Roy and Kori’s door.


	8. Chapter 8

Once Eerie had joined them, it didn't take long for the team to outline the game plan for that night: Eerie wanted to take a look at Georges's office to determine the parameters of another daytime stakeout. Jason still felt a little annoyed that she wouldn't let him just kill the guy already, but it was only for a moment. Besides, he had other things on his mind. He looked her over as she and Roy talked through improvements to the thermal mapping system they'd used at the police station; she was a little pale, but she wore her hangover pretty well.

She was definitely avoiding his eyes, though, which meant she hadn't been drunk enough to forget what had happened. Jason was fine with just never talking about it again and he really hoped she felt the same way.

It wasn't that he had anything against hooking up with her; the way his body had reacted the previous night definitely demonstrated that he found her attractive. But she'd said she didn't "do casual sex," and Jason wasn't sure what that meant but he guessed she wanted more than one fun night. And Jason hadn't done more than one fun night in a very long time. There had been that thing with the flight attendant, but it had really only illustrated that his life was too complicated for, well, anything. 

Then he noticed Kori watching him watch Eerie and quickly scowled at his boots. The last thing he needed was Kori giving him another lecture about how humans should be more like Tamaraneans. He had tried the whole "follow your feelings" thing before and it had taken him to a bad place. He could at least admit to himself that his feelings weren't always great for following. 

Eerie and Roy finished talking about whatever bullshit it was that needed discussing, and Roy looked over to Jason and said, "That sound good to you, Jay?" 

Jason broke off his scowling and said, "Yeah, fine. Everything good to go, then?" Each member of the team nodded. "Good, we'll leave when it gets dark." He stalked toward the door. "I'm gonna take a shower." 

The warm water relaxed his shoulder muscles a bit, but Jason couldn't shake the tighter-than-a-bowstring feeling. He let the water pour over his head and down his face as he leaned against the wall of the tiny stall. It was a little claustrophobic and Jason didn't usually stay very long, but today it offered a privacy that was unlikely to be disturbed by nosy or sexually aggressive teammates. 

Jason snorted at the image of Roy bursting in, wanting Jason to either talk or fuck. 

The room was still empty when Jason came out, and he rooted around in the various to-go containers until he found something appetizing. The headache he had woken up with had intensified during his hours with Roy and Kori, but the shower had eased it to a manageable level. Even better, he spied some painkillers in the pile of stuff surrounding Eerie's suitcase and helped himself to some, noticing exactly how many different bottles of pills she had scattered around. He checked the labels, filing the names away for future reference. Really, the panic attack last night shouldn't have surprised him; after all, it was her anxiety disorder that had outed her to Batman in the first place, and traveling often exacerbated anxiety. 

Jason shook his head; he was playing nursemaid again.

There were still a few hours until nightfall. He paced around the room for a minute before digging a well-worn paperback of _Moby Dick_ out of his bag and settling down with it. Crazy Captain Ahab had always reminded him of Bruce.

 

+++++

 

It hadn't taken Kairos more than an hour to get a feel for the vents in the municipal building and since she had Georges's address, she suggested they scope out his home while they were out. Red Hood, who was definitely avoiding her (and who could blame him), seemed to like the idea, so she and Arsenal were perched on the roof of a house across the street peering in the windows while Red Hood and Starfire scouted around. 

There were plenty of lights still on in Georges home, but Kairos had yet to get eyes on the occupants. "I'm moving to the house on the left," she said quietly and Arsenal nodded his assent. Grappling hooks were next to useless in residential areas, so she climbed down, skirted through the shadows of the street lights, and climbed on top of the abode of Georges's closest neighbor, Arsenal behind her. From the side, she could see into what looked like an office, and after a few minutes, Georges came into the room with a tumbler of amber liquid and sat down at the desk. 

Kairos settled in to pick through the threads. Georges had a lot of them, the most immediate of which was to his wife, who was in the nearby bedroom. It obviously wasn't a relationship with a whole lot of love on his part, but that wasn't necessarily surprising. She started looking at another thread, the one connected to the mayor, but she didn't sense any strong feelings there either. She started moving farther out, picking a thread, looking it over, then picking another one. She wasn't really sure how long she had been sitting there in silence when Arsenal said, "So you and Jason are totally not acting weird around each other." 

"We’re in the field," she answered without looking up. 

Arsenal huffed. "Fine, you and Red Hood are totally not acting weird." 

"We're both just focused on the job."

"Yeah, sure, nothing at all happened last night."

"I told you, I had a panic attack." Kairos was starting to get annoyed; Georges had almost finished his drink and could leave the office at any moment, and she still wasn't quite sure what was going on here. 

"If it was just a panic attack, Hood would be here keeping an eye on you instead of ordering me to do it. Both of you are avoiding being alone together like the plague."

"Arsenal, it's really hard to do my job when you're prying into my personal life." He went silent, but in a way that assured her that the conversation was not over. Meanwhile, Kairos had taken a look at a dozen different relationships, and Georges seemed to exhibit the same flat disregard in all of them. It was like he had no strong feelings about the people around him, even though to whom he was presumably close, like his wife. There wasn't even dislike, just an extreme disinterest. Kairos had seen this kind of the thing before in non-violent sociopaths, but they usually exhibited a few negative feelings about one relationship or another. This utter flatness was, well, weird. 

Georges did leave the room as soon as he finished his drink. Kairos stood up, feeling a little stiff, and said, "I think I'm done here." Arsenal radioed to Red Hood to let him know they were moving back to the hotel while Hood and Starfire continued to look around; Kairos would return to the municipal building shortly before sunrise. Instead of going to her room, though, Kairos claimed a place in the shadows on the hotel roof and watched the city not-so-far beneath her. Since sundown in Cherbourg was currently around 10 pm, there wasn't a lot of activity after dark apart from a couple of small bars downtown. Kairos watched the occasional passerby, seeing their feelings about spouses and lovers and friends and family members. She more than anyone knew how weird and complicated relationships could be, and she didn't even want to imagine what her connections to Jason and his team looked like. 

Jason. They would have to talk sometime about what had happened. Or not. At the very least they had to start genuinely acting like it hadn't happened so that Roy would get of her back. Her feelings were complicated. She supposed there was a certain degree of just plain physical lust; Jason was a handsome and well-built man and she hadn't been with anyone for a while. But the bigger part of the attraction was that Jason made decisions and  _ did _ things, and as someone who agonized over every choice, assuming that each one was going to ruin her life, Kairos was strongly drawn to that. Sometimes the decisions he made were perhaps not the best ones, but he made them because he cared deeply about making the world a less shitty place. And his confession regarding the Robins the previous evening had indicated that he knew some of his choices weren't great. And, if she were really honest with herself, she kind of liked the idea of the pissed look on Bruce's face if he knew she had drunkenly kissed his wayward son. 

She snorted derisively at herself. That kind of thinking probably indicated that it might be time to consider pulling a Nightwing, set up in a different city or maybe work for the League full-time. 

 

Her phone buzzed with a message from Damian:  _ I demand to know how much longer your truancy will continue. _

What a Damian way to say he missed her. Kairos sighed, remembering why leaving Wayne Manor permanently would have to wait.  _ Dunno,  _ she typed.  _ We're almost done in France, but after that, who knows? Everything okay?  _

Damian replied almost immediately.  _ Of course everything is fine, apart from my tutor suddenly disappearing for an indeterminate length of time with no regard for my education.  _

_ We both know you could just as well tutor yourself,  _ she wrote back. 

_ I have read The Rhetoric of Motives twice now and I still think this Kenneth Burke is an idiot! I don't understand why you find him of so much value.  _

Kairos was really quite touched, despite the fact that the kid was bad-mouthing one of the preeminent rhetoric scholars of the 20th century. The fact that he hadn't given up on Burke entirely meant that he valued her opinion enough to entertain the possibility that he might be missing something.  _ We can hash it out when I get back,  _ she typed.  _ Maybe I can come home for a few days next week.  _

No, she couldn't pull a Nightwing just yet.

With a sharp clattering, there was suddenly a pizza box beside her. A moment later, there was also a bottle of soda and a handful of napkins. "Thought you might be hungry," said Red Hood as he sat down on the other side of the pizza. He had taken off his helmet but left the domino mask, and was quickly shoving a piece of pizza covered in perhaps four different kind of meats into his mouth. Kairos looked tentatively in the box; she wasn't a strict vegetarian by any means but even just looking at that much meat made her feel queasy. Red Hood must have noticed. " I got half with veggies," he said. Sure enough, half the pizza was covered with spinach and bell peppers, and she eagerly took a slice. 

For a long time they sat eating in a slightly awkward silence. The pizza was honestly a little weird; the sauce seemed kinda sweet and the cheese was extra pungent, but Kairos didn't complain. Eventually, when she was sipping on the soda, she said, "Look, I'm really sorry about last night." 

"You already said that," Red Hood answered, "and I already told you not to worry about." 

Technically when she had said she was sorry, he had only told her not to worry about the panic attack, but if he wanted to continue not naming what had happened, she didn't mind. There was another awkward silence before Kairos blurted out, "Roy won't get off my back, so we seriously have to start acting like nothing happened." 

"I got us a pizza, didn't I?" he said. "That's pretty normal, ain't it?"

It was pretty normal, and Kairos didn't really have anything else to say. The silence dragged on. Kairos settled back to look at the stars, trying to fake a nonchalance she didn't feel. She suddenly wished she wasn't still in her suit; her hands were sweating in her gloves and it was starting to itch. She could think of about eight different things she wanted to say, but couldn't work up the nerve to say any of them, not even to ask about what he and Starfire had found during their scouting. Red Hood finally broke the silence. "You do hungover pretty well. If I hadn't been the one drinking with you I never would have guessed." 

"I got a lot of practice in my grad school days," she answered, still trying to feign the nonchalance. "After you teach a class hungover a couple of times, you get good at dealing." 

"I'm just glad you're not a puker." 

"Nah, the thing that gets me is the joint aches. On bad mornings, I look like an old lady."

Red Hood let out a short bark of laughter, and Kairos relaxed a teeny bit. “You gonna try to get some sleep before you head out?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Slept too much of the day already.”

“Then you wanna go down to the docks?”

“The docks?”

“Yeah, isn’t this place supposed to have, like, the second largest artificial harbor in the world or something? It must have some docks. Maybe we can stop a mugging or something.”

“You want to stop a mugging?”

“I dunno,” he answered, standing up and putting on his helmet. “I just want to be moving.”

His itchiness was contagious, and Kairos followed him into the night.

  
  



	9. Chapter 9

They had stopped a mugging and broken up a couple of drug deals before Red Hood accompanied Kairos to the municipal building and watched her climb into the ventilation system shortly before sunrise. Then he had returned to the hotel, showered again, and settled down with  _ Moby Dick _ to wait, but his mind wouldn't stay on Ishmael. Instead, he kept rehashing the previous night with Eerie. They had done a good job, he thought, of acting like nothing happened, and they made a decent team on the street. While he had pulled his usual intimidation routine on the first drug dealer they had met, Kairos had talked two partners into turning on each other using what she could see about their relationship; one guy had knocked the other out and then called the cops on him right before Red Hood knocked him out as well and tied him up next to his former partner. It had been like magic, but Eerie had assured him it was only because drug dealers tended to be suspicious and these two had a less than ideal history.

Then they had sat on a roof, passing a bottle of soda back and forth, and talked about all the times they had seen Dick puke. Dick was especially amusing when he vomited, and Kairos laughed hard when Red Hood told her about the time he'd seen a noodle come out his nose. Kairos followed it up with a story about Bruce and Dick going to a nightclub opening to maintain their billionaire playboy images and how Bruce had carried Dick in at the end of the night right before he up-chucked on Alfred. "And you know Alfred," she said, "nothing ever shakes his resolve, but I swear I heard him say 'Bloody hell' under his breath!"

"Ha!" said Red Hood. "I, at least, never made Alfred curse." They sat in a companionable silence; doing something normal like a patrol had lessened his nerves, and Kairos seemed easier too. "So, you and Dick..." He trailed off with a question mark hanging in the air, not really knowing why he felt he had to know.

"Oh please," she said quickly. "I mean, we're friends, really good friends, and he's insinuated a few times that if I ever wanted to move to fuck-buddy stage, he'd be open to it, but no. Never. Ugh."

It made Red Hood feel oddly warm to hear the Golden Boy denounced so thoroughly. "Well you seem to be in a minority," he said.

"Yeah, well, maybe it's the lack of red hair," she answered.

"He certainly does have a type," Jason said.

"He certainly does." Kairos didn't say anything for a few moments, then added, "I noticed that Kori never says anything about him."

"Tricky subject, considering that she made out with his former brother who tried to kill him and is sleeping with his former best friend," Red Hood said a little coldly.

"Forget I asked..."

He interrupted. "Sorry, that's not really it anyway. I don't think she remembers him."

"What?"

"She says that all humans kind of look alike to her if she doesn't see them regularly. I think she remembers being happy with someone, but I don't think she remembers him. I mean, when we first met up, she gave me one of his old suits without batting an eye."

"Weird," said Kairos. "But that does explain a few things." She looked away quickly. "I shouldn't have said that."

"And I'm not going to ask."

Jason had been surprised to find how easy it was to talk about his former family with her, probably because she was sometimes just as snarky and deprecating as he was. And when he said something that was maybe out of line, she didn't chide him or make that disappointed face he had seen on Tim from time to time; she just sailed right over it, like it hadn't happened. And he realized that he didn't really want her to go back to Gotham, and that maybe she didn't either. But he also didn't think she would ever really leave the bats; it was a cushy gig, running around after Bruce and never paying any rent, and sure, they had an island paradise, but they also, he was pretty sure, had the Justice League keeping tabs on all their movements. Not to mention that Interpol had been on his trail for a while now, making normal civilian life a bleak prospect. And dealing with him and Kori and Roy with all their issues could not be easy for her.

But she had kissed him. Of course, she had immediately regretted it, but there had been some kind of impulse there to begin with.

He was startled out of his circling thoughts around three in the afternoon by the buzzing of his phone on the bedside table, the novel still open in front of him. It was a message from Kairos:  _ Something is definitely up with Georges. I think it’s time to confront him _ .

Jason felt something in his stomach, some kind of vengeful joy, and all non-Untitled thoughts fled from his mind.  _ Tonight? _ he wrote back. Then,  _ You still in the vents? _

_ Yes and yes _ , she replied.  _ You all should check out of the hotel; it won’t do for Wayne’s PA to duck out of a hotel the same night that masked vigilantes attack a town official, if it comes to that _ . _ I’ll meet you outside Georges’ house after nightfall. _

_ You know that Roy and Kori are probably fucking right this moment, don’t you? _ Jason typed.  _ Getting them out of their room won’t be easy _ . _ I have to face Kori’s starbolts while you’re safely tucked away somewhere. _

_ Whatever, Todd _ .

Jason smirked and crossed the hall to his teammates’ room. Sure enough, he heard sounds that definitely suggested fornication coming from inside. He knocked on the door, then called, “Guys, we’re leaving in an hour, ” before quickly retreating back to his own room. He threw his stuff in his duffle, then attempted to carefully repack Eerie’s suitcase. She wasn’t exactly a neat person, but she had at least managed to keep her stuff contained to one corner of the room, so it didn’t take long to track it all down, including the stupid laptop she was always messing with.

Exactly an hour later, Kori and Roy were waiting for him in the hall, bags in hand. Roy raised an eyebrow at him. “Tonight,” was all Jason said, and Roy nodded, hoisting his and Kori’s bags and following Jason down the hall.

Jason explained to the clerk at the front desk that they had just heard from some friends who were coming into Paris and were going to try to catch the train in time to meet them that evening. The clerk just smiled; the rooms had been paid for in advance, so she had no worries about the guests leaving. Jason, Kori, and Roy took a cab down to the train station, and then it was just a matter of surreptitiously slipping over to the shipping crate with the spacecraft inside, which ended up taking the better part of an hour.

Despite their earlier activities, Roy and Kori were all business once they got inside, immediately suiting up. “Is Kairos sure it’s him?” Roy asked as he double-checked the arrows in his quiver.

“No,” Jason admitted from where he was cleaning his guns, “but we’ve gotten as far as surveillance is going to get us. She says that something is definitely not right with Georges.”

“Any idea what we’re up against tonight?”

Jason shrugged. “Considering last time, the whole town.”

Roy just nodded and went on to look over his bow while Kori sat in a corner, arms crossed, face set in a hard look.

The waiting sucked. After a while, Roy started tinkering with stuff on the ship and Kori sat by him asking questions and making flirtatious comments. Jason took another nap in the co-pilot’s chair, but it still felt like forever before it was dark enough for the masks to venture out.

Kairos was waiting for them on the roof of the house across from Georges. “What do you think?” Red Hood asked her immediately.

“He either the worst sociopath I’ve ever encountered or not human,” she said without hesitation. “He appears to feel nothing about other people while inspiring a deep sense of devotion in others. Whatever it is, it’s not natural.” Jason nodded and started to turn away, but Kairos grabbed his arm. “But I still want to see for myself.”

It was a little reminder of their agreement, that she got to verify for herself that their targets were evil pieces of inhuman shit before Red Hood took them out. He hadn’t forgotten, but given his previous behavior, he could understand why she felt compelled to remind him. He just nodded again and surveyed the house in front of them, while his team waited for his instructions. Finally, he said, "Kairos and I will go in. If Georges is our target, I'll take care of him. Starfire, you'll be our eyes in the sky; it's possible everyone in town will head toward us when Georges realizes he's in trouble. You'll have to let us know if that's happening. Arsenal, your job is the immediate perimeter of the house; if things get hairy, try to buy us as much time as possible without interruption. I'll let you know when to call the ship. Kairos, when it arrives, you'll take over the controls. Any questions?" No one said anything. "Alright, let's go see if you found us a demon or not."

Red Hood climbed down the side of the house as Starfire took off overhead, setting herself in a large circle around their location. Kairos was behind him as he cut through the shadows on the street to the side of the Georges house. The study light was on, and Kairos indicated that he was probably there, but Red Hood instead jimmied the lock on the unlit first floor window. They entered, and he drew a gun, just in case they needed to threaten the wife into silence. Instead, they met no one as they found the stairs and began creeping up slowly, Kairos's steps as light as his own. At the top, he reached the hand not holding a gun behind him to stop her before she bumped into him, and let himself be relieved for a second that he had grabbed her shoulder instead of something less appropriate. She stood completely still behind him; she had pulled her cowl up over her mouth and nose so he couldn't even hear her breathing.

Around the corner was the study, and he heard noises that indicated someone was inside. Peeking around, Red Hood saw Georges sitting at the desk with his back to the door. It was too perfect, which made him suspicious, but being suspicious made him feel confident, so he strode into the study with heavy footfalls. " _ Good evening, Georges _ ," he said in French. " _ Lots of work tonight? _ "

Georges rose suddenly and spun around. " _ Who are you?! What are you doing in my house?! _ "

Red Hood casually gestured with his gun. " _ Just making sure the right person is home. _ " 

Georges didn't flinch at the sight of the weapon, making Red Hood even more sure of what this was in front of him. Instead the supposed Frenchman's eyes narrowed slightly. " _ Whatever do you mean by that?" _ he asked.

Kairos chose that moment to come around the corner. " _ We know you are Untitled, Georges _ ," she said as she walked to Red Hood's side. 

" _ Whatever do you mean by that? _ " Georges repeated, his face impassive.

Red Hood answered by sliding the All-Blades out of their sheaths. " _ You know the All-Blades cannot be drawn except in the presence of pure evil, _ " he said.

Georges smiled just a tiny bit and his face began to change, sliding down almost like it was melting, replaced by black ooze. The change traveled down the rest of his body, until a black humanoid figure stood in front of them with oily scythes for arms. Red Hood could definitely hear Kairos's breath now, short gasps of air as she felt the hate and rage from the creature wash over her. Jason felt it too, but he had been expecting it, and he couldn't chance taking his eyes off the Untitled to check on her. "Well?" he asked.

Without a second's pause, she said, "Kill it."

Red Hood grinned under his helmet. "With pleasure."

The Untitled smashed through the window behind it, and Red Hood followed.

 

+++++

 

Kairos watched Red Hood jump out the window after the black form, but for a long second she couldn't move. The Untitled had been...she swallowed hard, took a shaky breath, and tried to push down the overwhelming sense of horror. She walked slowly to the window, but didn't have time to find Red Hood in the dark before Starfire's voice came over the comm. "People have started coming out into the streets. They are heading toward your location."

"Arsenal, call the ship," said Red Hood.

"Roger," said Arsenal.

Kairos shook her head to clear it. "Remember," she said, "these are civilians. Non-lethal force only."

"Yeah, yeah, Daddy Bats," said Arsenal.

Kairos perched on the window ledge and used a grappling hook to climb onto the roof. Red Hood was in the large back yard, swords flashing as the Untitled twisted into alien shapes. Across the street, she could see Arsenal's silhouette, bow drawn and aimed down the street at an incoming group of people. When he released the arrow, it exploded into a large net, knocking most of civilians down and effectively deterring them from joining the Untitled. In the distance, she saw the flash of a starbolt. Standing on the edge of the roof, she threw batarangs with knockout gas at the few people who had evaded Arsenal's net. "Kairos," said Arsenal, "we've got a problem. The ship is jammed."

_ Shit _ . If one thing was going to choose not to work, it would be the ship. Arsenal and Starfire would do a better job at giving Red Hood cover, so Kairos immediately dropped to the ground and started to run toward the train yard. "I'm on it," she said. "Red Hood is in the back yard."

"Roger," Arsenal said, and Kairos saw him scurry to the top of another house, firing what appeared to be a foam arrow at another oncoming group.

Kairos ran until she was out of the residential area and into downtown. Unfortunately, some of the fanatical townspeople had started to follow her. Once she was downtown, she had two choices: she could take to the rooftops where few would follow, or she could try to lose them in Cherbourg's winding alleys and narrow streets. She evaluated quickly; if she needed to work on the outside of the ship to get it moving, she couldn't do it with maddened civilians crowding her, so she needed to lose them before she got there. If she took to the rooftops, they'd probably be able to follow her on the ground; she needed to get to the ship as quickly as possible and didn't have time for hiding, misleading them, or any of the other ploys she might have used in another scenario. Additionally, the narrow streets and alleys would be perfect for knockout gas, creating substantial obstacles for followers with minimal risk to their safety.

Kairos darted down the first side street she came to, dropping a handful of pressure-sensitive gas pellets behind her. By the time the crowd had followed, she was around another corner, but she could hear their coughing and sputtering when they reached her trap. She kept running, zigzagging down streets and alleys in the general direction of the train yard, dropping gas pellets whenever she heard anyone behind her. The few times someone stepped out in front of her, she used another gas batarang, but she had only started with eight and could only keep that tactic up so long. She was only a couple of minutes from the train yard when the gunfire started. It seemed that the mob had gotten wise to her tricks and was now taking streets parallel to her instead of trying to follow her. It couldn't be more than a half a dozen, but they were working as a team, calling instructions and directions to each other when they spotted her, taking a few shots as well. She was about to climb a nearby roof, hoping that they would keep looking for her on the ground long enough for her to get to the ship, when three men darted in front of her and stopped. Two held handguns and the third wielded a long piece of metal pipe, so she immediately jumped in the middle of them to discourage them from using the guns for fear of hitting one of their own. It worked; one of them men fired a wild shot, probably in attempt to scare her, but she quickly disarmed the other and ducked when the man with the pipe swung and connected with his friend's stomach. She gave pipe-man a swift strike on the back of the head and all three were down.

There was another gunshot, and Kairos turned to see the other group had come up behind her while she was distracted.  _ Stupid _ , she thought.  _ So stupid. _

Then her right shoulder exploded in pain and she realized that this time the gunman had made his mark. 

She threw a handful of small explosives toward the men and in the ensuing chaos ran as hard and as fast as she could, making a beeline for the train yard and holding her right arm to her chest. She couldn't fight anyone in this state. Luckily the small explosion had distracted any other pursuers, and, even better, the ship wasn't actually jammed; it just hadn't been able to maneuver out the front of the container. She flung herself in the pilot seat, eased the ship out the door, and set it to home in on Arsenal's signal. "I'm in the air, Arsenal," she said.

"Good," he answered, breathing hard, "because we gotta get outta here."

Kairos pulled her cowl down around her neck and spared a look at her shoulder. There wasn't an exit hole in the front. Her suit had been designed for flexibility more than protection, and the joints especially had minimal armour to allow a fuller range of motion. What protection was there hadn't been enough to stop the bullet, but it had slowed it down enough to prevent it coming out the other side, so that bullet was still in there somewhere.

She pushed the thought out of her mind and took a deep breath, running quickly through the pain management meditation Bruce had taught her as the spacecraft glided over the area she had just run through and hovered over the Georges house. Arsenal was still on the roof, keeping anyone from passing the front of the house, while Starfire shot starbolts at anyone approaching from the back. In the middle, Red Hood continued to fight the Untitled, who had lost one of its scythe arms and was definitely moving slower. As she watched, Red Hood swiped both his blades across his chest, cutting down to the skin, and the blades began to glow. "Land the ship!" ordered Arsenal, and Kairos acquiesced, hearing his feet his the top when he jumped from the roof. "Hood, you gotta wrap this up now!"

Red Hood's voice was a bit belabored when he said, "But it's so much fun."

"Do it, Hood," yelled Starfire, "or I'll have to start killing people!"

Arsenal stormed up the boarding ramp, and Kairos scrambled from the pilot seat, moving to the ramp so she could see. He sat down and punched a few buttons, and the ship fired a volley of electricity at an approaching civilian. "Almost done!" yelled Red Hood, and an inhuman scream underlined his statement.

"Starfire, get onboard," yelled Arsenal, and the alien was almost immediately swooping past Kairos to take the co-pilot seat. Arsenal fired one more burst of electricity at a pair chasing Red Hood as he ran toward the boarding ramp, sheathing his swords on the way. Kairos stepped back to get out of his way. 

It didn't matter. He ran straight to her, pressing her against the back wall and pulling off his helmet, kissing her hard as it clattered to the floor. Her mind went deliciously blank as she felt his hands at her waist; her right arm was pressed between their bodies, but her left hand grabbed the dark curls at his neck. She felt the sensation of motion and wasn't sure if Arsenal was taking off or she was just floating. Jason pulled her body closer, deepening the kiss, and she responded by wrapping her fingers more tightly in his hair.

"I do not like interrupting such open displays of emotion," she heard Starfire say distantly, "but you are wounded."

Jason pulled back, glancing down at his cuts. "It's nothing, Kori," he said, looking back at Kairos, smiling. Then the smile dropped as his eyes settled over her shoulder, and Kairos guessed that her bullet wound had left a bloody spot on the wall. She also guessed that the lightheadedness she was feeling wasn't just from the kiss. "I think I should sit down," she said weakly, Jason catching her as she slumped forward. He set her down on the floor, saying, "How do I disarm your suit?" Glad that Jason had remembered before electrocuting himself, Eerie reached up her left hand to awkwardly fiddle with the small mechanism behind the stylized right point of her mask, then tripped a similar mechanism at the back of her neck while Jason pulled the mask off. He unzipped the top half of her uniform, pushing it off her body and moving behind her. She heard him suck in air and say, "You got shot," but before she could reply, he prodded the wound, and the wave of pain pushed her into darkness.


	10. Chapter 10

A parade of curses streamed through Jason's head as he surveyed Eerie's wound. A shoulder shot wasn't life threatening, but it looked like the bullet was still in there and she had lost a lot of blood, was still losing it. When they got back to the island, he'd have to fish the hunk of metal out and she'd probably need a transfusion. Jason had followed Bruce's habit of monthly blood collection with Roy and even Kori for these situations, but hadn't thought about storing any of Eerie's since she was strictly there for research and recon. "Omni," he said, addressing Roy's computer, "do you know Eerie's blood type?" 

"NEGATIVE, RED HOOD," the computer answered. 

"What's going on back there?" asked Roy. 

"Bullet wound, right shoulder," Jason answered. 

"They had guns in that town?!" Roy said incredulously. 

Jason ignored him. "Kori, get some bandages out of my duffle and put some pressure on this." 

His brain worked furiously as Kori moved to comply. He needed to contact one of the bats; they would all know her blood type. Roy was O+, so if she was + anything, then great. If not, then they'd have to make a pit stop at a hospital along the way. Unfortunately, most bats would be inclined to believe that he shot her, so that limited his options. Making a decision, Jason pulled out his phone and dialed Tim's number. 

"Hello?"

Jason wasted no time with preliminaries. "I need to know Eerie's blood type." 

"A+," Tim said immediately and Jason let out the breath he had been holding. "What happened?" 

"Bullet wound, right shoulder."

"Update me later?" This was why Jason had called Tim; the kid immediately realized that Jason didn't have time to give him all the details. 

"Will do," he said and ended the call. 

"Well?" said Roy. 

"A+."

"Oh thank God. I am not in the mood for ransacking a hospital."

Kori had been perplexed when Jason and Roy tried to explain blood types -- apparently Tamaraneans didn't have them -- but she understood the implications. "The sooner we get home the better," she said. "Putting pressure on the wound is causing her pain." 

After a nerve-wracking three hour flight, Roy set them down on the island. Eerie came to just as Jason laid her down on a table in the home ship's small med bay. "You got shot," Jason said as he dug around in a drawer for some forceps and antiseptic. Roy was already pulling a bag of his own blood out of a small fridge. 

"I know," she mumbled.  

"I have to get the bullet out and stitch you up, and then we're going to give you some of Roy's blood," Jason continued as he pulled off her top and dropped it on the floor, deciding that the racer-back bra underneath wasn't in the way. 

"A+."

"I know. I called Tim."

Jason was grabbing the forceps from their antiseptic bath when Kori, who was helping Roy find something to attach the blood bag to, suddenly said, "Something bad is about to happen." He paused and looked up at her, seeing Roy do the same. Her eyes were wide with terror and she was clenching and unclenching her hands. "Roy, the humans are coming for me. They're going to take me away and do tests on me. Please, Roy, make them stop, please, please, don't let it happen." 

Kori grabbed at Roy, and Jason saw his eyes go wide as well. "She's right, Jason," he said. "Something bad is happening." Roy's face had gone white and he looked around the room nervously. Kori was sobbing on his chest, muttering incoherently. 

Jason felt it too, an uneasiness in the pit of his stomach. Sure, this was a stressful situation, but he hadn't felt this kind of anxiety about first aid since his return from the grave. It was like the sudden onset of a mass panic attack, like there was free-floating anxiety filling the room like a gas. 

He looked down at his patient. "Eerie, I think you're projecting. Can you stop?" 

After a second, she muttered, "Sedative." Jason grabbed a tranquilizer from his belt and stuck it in her arm, watching her eyelids flutter shut. Almost instantly, the pressure on his chest receded and Kori's tears quieted. "What the hell just happened?" said Roy. 

Jason immediately went to work removing the bullet. "Eerie was projecting," he said as he poked the forceps into the hole. "She does it unconsciously when she's under stress." 

"That sucked balls," Roy replied. Kori didn't say anything, her face still buried on Roy's chest. 

"Yeah, it did, but she needs some blood.”

Roy got back to work with hooking up the blood bag as Jason got the forceps on the bullet and pulled it out with a sucking sound. He cleaned the wound with some of the antiseptic and began stitching it up as neatly as possible while Roy started an IV. 

A few hours later, Jason sat in Eerie's room, watching her sleep. After the transfusion had finished, he had carried her as gently as possible to her temporary bed. Then he had patched up the cuts on his chest, sent a quick message to Tim, and retrieved a chair and a bottle of cheap tequila from under his own bed before beginning his vigil. 

As soon as he had started the IV and seen that Jason could manage on his own, Roy had led Kori back to their room. She hadn't moved since Eerie had stop projecting, just stood there with her hands covering her face. Jason figured that with her emotional nature, Kori had felt Eerie's projected anxiety worse than him or Roy. It was a strange thing, he thought as he took another sip of tequila, to realize that he had come to accept a certain level of anxiety as normal, so that it had taken him longer to understand that something out of the ordinary was happening. He wondered if Eerie had ever had the same realization. And he wondered, not for the first time, what it was like in Kori's mind. He was a little jealous of the way things seemed to just roll off her back. Even today's trauma would be forgotten by the time she woke up the next day. 

Instead he sat vigil. With Eerie, sure, but also with his guilt. On one level, it was the guilt that every leader felt when a team member was injured, and that was fine. But what was really eating him up was that he had forced himself on Eerie without even noticing that she was hurt. She had been bleeding everywhere. What the hell was his problem?

He wasn't even sure what he had meant by the kiss. It had been complete impulse; he was just so happy that he was alive and she was there and he wanted to be close to her to celebrate their aliveness. Even now he wanted to scoot the chair close to her bed, to reach out and hold her hand.

Instead he forced himself to stay on the opposite side of the room. Instead he was sending her home as soon as possible. He would only hurt her or get her hurt if she stayed. 

 

+++++

 

Eerie woke with the feeling that she had been dreaming about Scooby Doo and the Mystery Machine, which meant that she had been unconscious. Then she felt the pain shooting down her arm and through her chest and remembered why. She opened her eyes to find herself in her room on the island, and turned her head to see Jason propped up in a chair, bottle dangling from his hand, head tucked to his chest. She was so thirsty, and conveniently someone had placed a glass of water by her bed, but when she tried to sit up to grab it with her left hand, a loud groan pushed past her lips. Jason startled awake, dropping the bottle and blinking owlishly. Almost immediately he was holding the water to her lips and she was drinking greedily, downing half the glass. Then just as quickly, he was back on the other side of the room and she felt disgruntled at the loss of the warm presence of his body next to hers. 

"How do you feel?" he asked. 

"Okay." It was a completely inadequate way to describe how she was feeling: in pain, elated at the memory of the kiss, extremely tired but unwilling to let a moment with him to be lost to sleep. Underneath that was a layer of shame that she had let herself get caught in such a rookie mistake and that she felt like such a preteen girl. But it was still better than the standard "Like I got shot" line. "How long since Cherbourg?" she asked instead. 

"About ten hours."

"Sorry about projecting."

"Don't worry about it." She knew she should worry, though, when she saw a wave of sympathy pass along his thread to Kori. She would have to deal with the fallout as best she could later. 

And then a long awkward silence. It slowly dawned on her how uncomfortable he looked, and she felt her face fall. "What's wrong?" she said. "Did someone get hurt?" 

Jason snorted. "You did." 

"That's not what I..."

He held up a hand to stop her. "Eerie, Roy is going to take you back to Gotham tomorrow." 

"I'm not hurt that bad."

"You got shot!"

"Yeah, but I can heal up here just as well as there. Even better without Damian on my back. Besides, why are you telling instead of asking? Don't I get some say in this?"

Jason squared his jaw. "The kiss was a mistake. Near-death experience horniness. I don't want to fuck you up anymore than you already are." 

A completely separate pain from the pain in her shoulder shot through her chest and stomach.

Before she could even consider a response, Jason was already walking to the door. "There's some pain meds on the table. You leave in four hours. Try to get some more sleep in the meantime." 

_ Fuck you _ , she thought, pushing down the ache and squaring her shoulders as best she could.  _ I'll show you who's fucked up.  _ "What about the job?" she said. "I signed on for more than one Untitled." 

Jason stopped but didn't turn around to face her. She could tell he was trapped. He wanted to be rid of her, but he wanted to be rid of the Untitled more, and it was going to be so much harder to do it without her. "We can pick it back up when you're better," he said slowly. "If you want to." And then he was gone. 

Eerie remained sitting up as long as she could, just in case he came back in the room. She wasn’t entirely sure what had just happened, but she refused to look weak in front of him ever again.  _ Fucked up _ , she thought. Eerie knew she was not the most emotionally stable person -- she had brain chemicals to blame for that -- but the fact that she owned it and took steps to constrain its effects in her life was exactly what made her not fucked up. Besides, where did Jason Todd get off calling anyone fucked up? He had been the poster child for fucked up since he tried to kill his former father figure and pseudo-foster brothers.

Her anger didn’t hold her up long, however, and after a few minutes of silently raging with a clenched jaw, Eerie felt the pain in her shoulder again. She took a couple of the pain pills with the rest of the water and lay back down as gently as possible. Almost immediately, tears started seeping out from her closed eyelids and running down her face to the pillow. She cried not because of any particular emotion but because she was completely overwhelmed by all of them. She had been injured in the field before, but this was her first bullet wound, and she was hurt and a little scared and really wanted Alfred or Dick or even Bruce there to tell her that it was going to be fine, that everyone got shot eventually. She was angry at Jason for not being reassuring just as much as she was angry at him for being a dick. She was ashamed of getting shot in the first place, of her complete loss of control in the med bay, of apparently getting used by Jason in his “near-death experience horniness" and enjoying it. And she was sad at being rejected so completely by someone she had started to really like. 

She felt full-up, so she cried.

She must have cried herself to sleep because a few hours later, she woke with a start to a knock on her door. “Yeah,” she said groggily, wiping a hand over her face and fortunately finding it dry.

Arsenal came in and said, “You ready to go?” 

Eerie glanced around the room. Her uniform top was sitting on the chair with her cape and mask. Her boots were on the floor next to her new suitcase and green backpack, all packed and ready to go. Jason had taken the liberty, she guessed, probably to get her out the door as quickly as possible. She wasn't sure, though, if she hoped that he hadn't seen her tears or that he had and felt like shit. “I guess so,” she said, getting out of the bed. She was still wearing her dark gray pants and sports bra and managed to get her boots on herself, but Arsenal had to help her struggle into the top. Putting on the cape and mask, she grabbed the handle of the backpack and walked out the door, leaving the suitcase behind.

They made the short flight to Gotham in silence. The pain meds had put Kairos a little out of sorts, but she couldn’t not see the threads attaching Arsenal to Kori and Jason. They burned with sense of fierce protection, but the dark look on Arsenal’s face and the lack of jokes told her that protection was not currently extended to her. She wondered what Jason had told him to make him glower so. More likely, Jason hadn’t told him anything at all beyond the fact that Eerie was returning to Gotham, and Arsenal had jumped to his own conclusions about what had transpired behind closed doors. Once more, she thought,  _ Fuck you, Jason Todd _ . But she also felt some guilt; her projections must have hit Kori hard to cause this kind of response from easy-going Arsenal.

Neither spoke until Arsenal sat the spacecraft down in the same park where he had picked Red Hood and Kairos up. “I’m sorry about the projections,” she said. “Please tell Kori I’m sorry too.”

“Whatever,” he said, not looking at her.

Kairos got up out of the copilot seat, picked up her bag, and moved toward the ramp. Arsenal’s voice pulled her up short. “Jason may not be perfect,” he said, “but he does not deserve your shit. He’s too good for you anyway.”

“Maybe you should double-check who’s giving who shit,” she answered darkly and stalked off the ship. Arsenal took off again as soon as she was disembarked, and Kairos turned her communicator on in her mask. “Batcave, this is Kairos. You there?”

Alfred’s voice came over the speaker in her ear. “Kairos, this is Penny One. Do you need assistance?”

“It’s good to hear you, Penny One,” she answered, meaning every word. “I need a pick up at Presby State Park.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” said Alfred. A minute later, he was back. “Kairos, Batman is en route. ETA ten minutes.”

“Thanks, Penny One.” Normally, Kairos would have climbed into one of the nearby trees to wait, but she couldn’t in her current condition. Jason could have at least given her a couple of days to heal before kicking her out. Just another reason he was an asshole. Instead, she hunkered down in some underbrush to wait for the Batmobile.

Ten minutes later, just as Alfred had promised, the Batmobile arrived. As she got in the passenger side, throwing the backpack in the storage area behind the seats, Batman said, “What’s wrong?”

“I got shot,” she answered. “Right shoulder.”

“When?” he asked as he pulled back onto the highway.

“Yesterday, so no need to rush home.”

He grunted in response and turned on the comm. “Penny One,” he said, “Kairos is coming in with a bullet wound, so prep the med bay.” 

“Red Hood took care of it,” she said. She couldn’t bring herself to use his first name yet; Batman would be sure to pick up on her anger and that would only bring uncomfortable questions.

“Alfred will still take a look at it.” He never even took his eyes off the road. “Who did it?”

Kairos was pretty sure that he had assumed that Jason had been the one to shoot her until she had indicated that he had patched her up. “Some brainwashed French guy,” she answered.

“The case?”

“We took out one bad guy. Only about ten to go.”

“Did Red Hood…”

Kairos didn’t want him to finish that sentence. “It was demonic, pure evil, and Red Hood eliminated it.”

Batman grunted again.

They ended up stopping at a liquor store robbery, but Kairos waited in the car as Batman took care of business. By the time they got back to the cave, Alfred had pulled out and cleaned all manner of medical equipment and Damian was pacing imperiously around the med bay. “Todd will pay for what he has done!” he announced as soon as Kairos eased herself out of the car.

_ Yes he will _ , she thought, but instead she said, “Easy, D, he wasn’t the shooter.” 

Damian glared at her skeptically for a moment, then said, “Well, he has done many other things worth retribution.”

“Damian,” Bruce said, removing his cowl and gloves, “take Eerie’s bag to one of the guest rooms.” Damian glared at his father then huffily pulled the backpack out of the Batmobile and stomped up the stairs. 

In the meantime, Alfred had already started removing Eerie’s cape and suit, stripping her to her underwear and guiding her to a waiting table. Bruce watched as Alfred removed the bandages to examine the wound. “It is good to have you back,” said Alfred, “though I would have prefered you returned in better condition.”

“It’s just the one bullet hole,” she said, pushing away the paranoid feeling that Alfred could see into her roiling mind.

“All the same, Miss Eerie. Was the bullet removed?”

“Yeah.”

“Excellent. I’ll just tidy up these stitches then. Stitches never were Master Jason’s forte.”

Alfred got to work, spraying on a localized anesthetic and carefully working with needle and thread. Bruce continued to look at her. "You shouldn't have been traveling," he said finally. 

"Red Hood wanted me back here ASAP."

"Was he unsure of his first aid treatment? Is the wound likely to become infected?"

"Not that I know of."

Bruce didn't like that answer, but Eerie didn't bother to volunteer any more information. He changed subjects. "How do you feel about the mission?" 

"The things Red Hood is after, the Untitled, they're bad news. They've been content to lay low for several centuries, in part because of the All-Caste keeping them in line, but with the All-Caste gone, I'd hate to see what would happen if they decided to aspire to something other than comfortable survival."

"You said something about brainwashing."

"They inspire this fanatical devotion without exhibiting any strong feelings for others. It's the kind of threads I see in the Joker, but worse. The Joker at least has strong feelings about you. I haven't been able to determine how the Untitled do it, but it is definitely not their rhetoric."

Bruce studied her for a minute. "And they aren't human?" 

"Not any more."

He turned to head toward the changing area. "It sounds like Jason has found a worthwhile project." 

Eerie didn't say anything. The reminder of Jason's basic goodness angered her a bit, but it also made a lump form in her throat. Alfred must have sensed it. "Are you alright, Miss Eerie?" he asked from behind her. 

"I'm tired," she said, "and really overwhelmed." 

"Yes, well, one's first bullet wound is always taxing." She felt him apply a clean bandage with tape to her shoulder. "Perhaps something for the pain and a spot of herbal tea will help set you right." 

"I hope so."


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter should basically be called "Dick Is A Good BFF (Most of the Time)."

Eerie was awoken the next morning by a sharp shake to her left shoulder. Her eyes popped open to be met by Damian's glare. "Pennyworth sent me to check on you," he said. 

"Did he tell you to wake me up?"

" _ Tt _ , it's almost one o'clock."

"Whatever." She started to roll over away from him but stopped when she felt a sharp pain.

Damian wrinkled his nose. "You need to bathe. You smell like blood." 

"Fine, fine," Eerie answered. "Go start the shower and I'll get up." 

Surprisingly the boy complied, trotting into the attached bathroom. Eerie pulled the covers down. She was still wearing the same blood-soaked bra because she hadn't felt up to trying to wrestle it off the previous night. She started to lift her injured arm above her head and ceased quickly. No good, she was going to have to cut the stupid thing off. 

She sent Damian away, promising to come downstairs shortly, and retrieved a small pair of scissors from her backpack. Working slowly and carefully, she was soon naked and in the shower, washing her hair with one hand. When she finally did make it down the stairs, fully clothed and hungry, the boy was waiting impatiently in the kitchen, perched on a countertop. 

"Pennyworth is out running errands," he announced, "and I am to fix your lunch." 

"Tuna and avocado sandwich," she said immediately, "and macaroni and cheese." 

Damian curled up his nose again. "That sounds disgusting." 

"That's what I want."

"I've never made macaroni and cheese before."

"I'll talk you through it. First you'll need a big pot and a little saucepan." As Damian found the cookware, Eerie noticed the fresh pot of coffee that Damian must had started right after she woke up, and as she poured a cup, she was reminded that though he had killed some people, Damian was fundamentally a good kid. 

A half an hour later, they sat at the kitchen island eating Damian's first mac-n-cheese. He had apparently also decided that tuna and avocado didn't sound so bad either. "So," he said, "this Burke fellow, why do you think he's so smart?" 

Eerie sighed. "Get a pain pill and your copy of Burke's  _ Rhetoric _ , and then we can talk." 

They were still debating the finer points of Burke's theory of identification when Alfred returned two hours later. Damian had been well-educated in a variety of subjects -- math, science, engineering, and economics -- but most of the humanities had been left by the wayside. Eerie hoped that an education in rhetoric would help Damian consider the viewpoints of others, but his mother's training was fairly firm. For example, some of Damian's complaints about Burke seemed to stem from the fact that he couldn't understand why a person would be so disgusted by and afraid of military action, a key concern of Burke's. Eerie tried to explain it as best she could, but despite his advanced intellect, Damian -- like most people -- could only change his mind so much over a short period of time. So Eerie reminded herself that she was playing the long game and assigned his next reading. 

By then, she was exhausted and needed a nap before dinner. 

Alfred insisted she stay in the manor as long as she was on medication, so for the next few days Eerie spent most of her time alternately binge-watching  _ The X-Files  _ and napping with occasional bouts of tutoring with Damian. To herself she fully acknowledged that she was moping, burying herself in Mulder and Scully's work to avoid dealing with all the anger and shame and sadness that bubbled up any time her mind wasn't distracted. 

But Bruce only let it go on for so long. A week after her return, he interrupted her TV time by barging into the den and saying, "Change clothes and come down to the cave. It's time to start physical therapy."  Eerie didn't even bother to protest, just did as she was told and threw herself into the exercise. It was another distraction.

Dick showed up later that evening. Eerie was pretty sure that Bruce had called him after she had declined all of his openings to talk about what had happened with the Outlaws, especially since Bruce quickly herded Damian out of the Manor on some errands when it became obvious that the kid wanted nothing more than Dick's attention. "So how are you doing?" asked Dick as he sat down on the couch next her. Eerie hadn't even bothered to pause the TV.

"Well," she said, not looking at him, "today, I'm thinking about how cliche it is that I got shot in the shoulder. Just enough of an injury to be serious, but not enough to kill me."

"Shoulder shots happen more often than you'd think," said Dick. "People aim for center mass but tend to pull up when they fire, especially if they're inexperienced gunmen." There was an awkward pause as Scully infiltrated a shady government facility. "Are you mad at me?" Dick finally asked. "I should have come sooner and you have every right to be mad at me."

Eerie rolled her eyes a little and paused the TV. "No, I'm not mad at you, I'm just..." she shrugged. "I have a bajillion feelings right now, but I don't want to talk about them because they're crazy and stupid and weird."

Dick grabbed her hand. "That's okay. But I'll listen when you want me to."

Eerie smiled at him, but it was forced and he saw right through it. 

"Are you still on pains med?" Dick asked suddenly.

"No," she answered sheepishly, "I should have moved back out to the guest house by now, but it's been nice to have Damian wait on me."

"Good, let's go out dancing."

Eerie groaned. "You know how I feel about clubs."

"You mean the way you always complain before we go and always feel better the next day? C'mon, let's start some rumors that Bruce's ward is dating his assistant. It's been too long since the Waynes have been in the tabloids. It'll be fun!"

"Alright, but only if we go to Vila." Bruce was was a part-owner and they could get discount drinks, and Eerie hated the idea of spending more on alcohol than she had to.

"No complaints here," said Dick.

Several hours later, sweaty and buzzed, Dick and Eerie were back on the couch with the leftovers that Alfred had thoughtfully set aside for their return. Eerie was giggly, happy from her time on the dance floor with the most prominent thing on her mind being how good the pounding music felt as it shook her insides. She was laughing especially hard at Dick's impression of one dudebro that had repeatedly hit on her that night.

"I still think you have gone home with him," said Dick. "I want details about his interior decorating choices."

"Then you should have gone home with him," she answered.

Dick grimaced. "Definitely not my type."

"I kissed Jason." It came out like word vomit, and Eerie was just as surprised as Dick looked, his mouth a little agape as he stared. She settled back into the couch cushions and continued, because, really, there was no taking that back. "I told Jason he had to wait to attack the evil thing until I was sure it was evil and he yelled at me, then bought a bottle of whiskey to apologize and we drank it and then I kissed him and then I had a panic attack."

Dick's mouth continued hanging open for a few seconds. "What triggered the panic attack? And what did Jason do?"

"I guess I freaked out because he seemed really into it but I wasn't sure if he would just want to have sex and be done, and you know how one night stands fuck me up." Dick did know; after her grad school girlfriend dumped her, Eerie had taken Dick's advice to date around for a while, but the casual sex had left her more anxious than anything. "He was nice about it, got me to calm down, put me to bed, slept on the couch, but we just avoided talking about but it. I mean, we kinda talked about it, but that was mostly to clarify that we weren't going to talk about it. And then we were hanging out and that was fine and then we were fighting the evil thing and I got shot and Jason killed it and then he kissed me and I passed out and when I woke up again he was all like 'oh I was just horny because we didn't die and I don't want to fuck you up any more than you already are' and sent me back home."

"He said that? Son of a bitch!" Dick pulled out a cell phone and started punching at the screen.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm gonna give that bastard a piece of my mind."

"Dick, drunk dialing Jason Todd might be your worst idea ever."

Dick looked unconvinced for a moment, then slid his phone back in his pocket. “So that day I called and you were hungover?”

“Yep.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Eerie ran both hands through her hair. “Is there any not awkward way to say, ‘Hey, I made out with your foster brother who tried to kill you’?”

“Well,” Dick said, “no, but I would have gotten over it.”

“I know, I just wasn’t ready to talk about it, especially when I felt like such a crazy person to begin with.”

“And what do you feel now?”

Eerie rolled her eyes. “Oh good, it’s therapist Dick.” Dick just waited patiently for her to answer the question. Eerie sighed. “I feel angry, about what he said to me and about whatever he told Roy that got him pissed at me too. I also feel hurt and humiliated that I screwed up so bad and that he thinks I'm such a waste of space. I also…” She made an exasperated noise in her throat and scrunched her eyes shut in embarrassment. “I also can’t stop thinking about the kiss, which possibly makes me the stupidest person in the world.”

She opened one eye, then the other to see Dick’s reaction. He looked like he’d been hit with Joker gas. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You have a crush,” said Dick. “It’s cute.”

“No it isn’t! I must be out of my mind.”

“Okay, first of all, you’re not crazy; you’re just a human experiencing human emotions. Second, there are worse people to have crushes on. Like Lex Luthor. And third, it’s really adorable.”

Eerie stared at him in disbelief. “Why aren’t you freaking out about this?”

Dick shrugged. “I dunno. I guess I trust you as a judge of character. If you see something attractive in Jason, then it only confirms what I already believed, that he’s fundamentally a good person.”

“After what he said, I’m not so sure,” Eerie answered.

“Aw, c’mon, we both know he didn’t mean that.”

“Weren’t you about to call him and give him a piece of your mind?”

“He shouldn’t have said it, period. But, it’s a pretty classic bat family move: have a feeling about something, push whatever you have a feeling about far away.”

Eerie made a noncommittal noise. 

“Okay,” said Dick, “all weird feelings aside, what do you want to  _ do _ about it?”

Eerie thought about it. She had been moping around so she wouldn’t have to decide to do anything. Or maybe because she was no longer sure she  _ could _ do anything. Mostly, she wanted to make Jason eat his words, whether he had meant them or not. And the best way she could think of to do that was to be entirely competent at her job, gunshot and heartbreak or no. “I think I want to keep working the case,” she said.

“Then that’s what you should do,” said Dick, grinning less maniacally this time. “After a good night’s sleep, a hearty breakfast, and an early round of physical therapy.”

“Any chance of us pretending we never had this conversation?”

“Are you kidding? No chance in hell.”

 

+++++

 

Roy was worried about his friends.

When he got back from dropping Eerie outside Gotham, everything had been surprisingly normal: Kori was lounging in the sun and Jason was inside with a large cup of coffee and what looked like every gun he owned, systematically cleaning each one.

“I dropped her off,” Roy said to him. “It looked like the big guy picked her up a few minutes later.”

Jason grunted. Roy shrugged and went to see his girlfriend instead. She was wearing her purple bikini again. “Hey beautiful,” he said. “How are you feeling?”

Kori beamed up at him. “Just wonderful, Roy! Isn’t today lovely?”

“Yeah, said Roy, “it sure is.” He paused. “Do you want to talk about last night?”

“What about last night?” she asked, looking completely blissed.

“You know, the part where Kairos made you have a panic attack about humans enslaving you to do experiments?” When Kori didn’t respond, Roy continued. “I just want you to know, I would die before I let that happen.”

“I know,” said Kori, the look on her face unchanged. “I would too. Let’s go down to the beach and made love.”

Roy grinned. He could never say no to that.

But as effusive as Kori was being, she still refused to talk about the events of the previous evening. She didn’t even ask where Eerie was, though she had been sleeping, after hours of crying and shaking, when Jason had dragged Roy out of bed to play taxi. Roy chalked it up to her alien memory, but it still worried him. For his own part, the feeling of overwhelming, gut-wrenching anxiety was all too memorable, and he couldn’t help feeling bitter toward Eerie for putting them all through that, not to mention tossing Jason away like a piece of garbage.  

Jason was a whole other can of worms. Roy wasn’t necessarily surprised by how surly and withdrawn his friend was, but he was a little worried about Jason going through another one of his manic, obsessive phases. Sure, obsessing a little over a girl was, well, more normal that some of Jason’s previous experiences, but obsessing was almost always bad in Jason’s case. It lead to recklessness, broken bones, and explosions.

On the third day of Jason’s complete weapons overhaul, Roy stood leaning against a kitchen counter while Jason used some tiny screwdrivers to adjust some tiny sensors in a very large firearm. “Listen, I don’t know what happened between the time you and Eerie were making out in a puddle of blood in the back of my ship and the time you were shaking me half to death so I could take her back to Gotham, but she’s not worth all this.” 

Jason’s frowned deepened slightly, but he never took his eyes off his work.

“I mean,” said Roy, “she was fine, but she wasn’t anything special, and you deserve more than getting jerked around. Especially since she was spying on us for Batman anyway.”

“Why are you talking?” Jason asked, still keeping his eyes down.

“Because talking is good,” answered Roy lightly. “Talking is a much better way to deal with our problems than, say, going on a shooting spree that ends with your two best friends scraping what’s left of you off the ground. You opened up to her, she shot you down, and she’s a bitch for it. I just don’t want you starting an international incident just because of some stupid woman.”

“Roy, shut up.”

So Roy did, but he kept standing there, watching Jason until the other man’s hands slowed in their work, though he kept his eyes lowered. 

“I sent her back to Gotham,” he finally said. “She didn’t want to leave.”

Roy stared. “And she just happily acquiesced?”

“I...said some nasty things.”

Roy’s palm landed against his face with loud crack. “Jaybird, you’re an idiot. Also, thanks for making me act like a total tool.”

Jason looked up sharply. “What the hell did I do?”

Roy rubbed the back of his neck, looking a little sheepish.“I also may have said some nasty things after jumping to some hasty conclusions.”

“Oh fucking great! Now she’s going to think I’m even more of an asshole.” Jason tossed his tools down on the table and stood to leave. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter now.” He stalked off toward his room.

Roy watched him go, then headed back to his workshop. He couldn’t do anything about recklessness, he sucked at setting bones, but explosions was something he was good at.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nerd Alert: This chapter contains brief mentions of utilitarianism.

Dick had to leave again the next day, but not before finding several ways to make insinuating comments in front the other members of the Wayne household. Eerie was a little glad to see him go; it was good to get it all off her chest, but Dick’s teasing sometimes sent her insides roiling all over again, especially when Bruce gave her a particularly perceptive look after one of Dick’s jokes. 

The next few days were spent in physical therapy and research. Bruce pushed her hard in the gym, but he seemed relieved when Eerie started spending time on the computer instead of going straight back to the television after their sessions. He never pried into what she was working on, even taking Damian on patrol with him more than usual to keep the kid out of her hair as she worked later and later into the night, but after a few days he casually asked during one of their PT sessions if she was going to be rejoining the Outlaws anytime soon. 

Eerie couldn’t stop herself from visibly stiffening. “I don’t know,” she said slowly. “Hood said we could pick the case back up when I was better, if I wanted to, but I don’t know that I’m really welcome there anymore.” She resumed lifting a weight above her head with her injured arm. “I kinda started projecting in the med bay, when Hood was getting the bullet out. It hit Arsenal and Starfire pretty hard.”

Bruce grunted, putting his hands on her shoulder to readjust the angle of the motion slightly. Her muscles instantly dissented, but she gritted her teeth and focused on keeping the movement smooth. Bruce stepped back, but stayed behind her. 

“Did something happen with Jason?” he asked.

Panic welled inside her immediately. “Fuck Dick Grayson!” she snarled, throwing the weight onto the rubber covered floor. Fire flared up her shoulder at the sudden movement. She cradled her arm against her body immediately, tears springing to her eyes.

“It wasn’t just Dick,” Bruce said calmly, as if she hadn’t just been throwing a tantrum. “If it was just the projecting that brought you home, you would have mentioned that when you got back. It wasn’t even on your mind, or else you would have told Alfred to dose you.”

He was right, of course. Anytime she had worried that she might start projecting, she’d asked for the special mix of SSRIs and sedatives that mitigated it without completely knocking her out; it was the least she could do for the people she lived with. But she still didn’t turn around to face him. 

“Looks like you tore open the wound,” Bruce said. Eerie reached over her shoulder and felt the dampness soaking in the bandage and her shirt. Bruce grabbed her other arms and walked her over to the med bay, settling down with needle and thread to repair Alfred’s work. Eerie just sat there, biting back the occasional gasp of pain at the sharp moving through her skin.  _ Just spit it out,  _ she thought.  _ ‘Well, Bruce, I kind of drunkenly tried to hook up with your son, but that didn’t work out, and it turns out he’s a total asshole. _ ’ Her stomach was in a knot; it wasn’t like she worried about him being angry, even though that was his emotional go-to most of the time. She was more worried about getting his pity; if anyone knew what it was like to have Jason Todd trample your heart and spit in your face, it was Bruce.

It was a few minutes before either of them spoke. “Eerie, how’s Jason?” 

Eerie looked over at him. Bruce look as worried as he had ever seen him. The thread connecting him to Jason coiled and twisted, thickening then thinning out again. At the same time, his connections with his other sons, Dick and Tim and Damian, waxed and waned in the opposite pattern.  _ He’s worried that concern for Jason means he doesn’t care as much about the others, _ she realized,  _ that his continued love for Jason means he doesn’t actually love his own flesh-and-blood son. _ And that was why Bruce needed to know what had happened. He wanted so much to believe that Jason was worth loving to assuage his guilt about loving him, despite of everything that had happened. And he was hoping that Eerie could give him some proof.

Keeping in mind her promises to not reveal the things she saw along the threads, Eerie started slowly, choosing words carefully. “Jason is...better. He’s not necessarily happy, but he’s not as angry as he was the last time I saw him, right after you died, or got transported into the past or whatever. Roy and Kori give him some stability and some empathy.” Bruce had finished the stitches and was smearing an antibiotic on his work. Eerie took a deep breath and steeled herself. “I got...emotionally entangled with Jason. And he didn’t take it well.”

“He didn’t take it well,” Bruce repeated as he smoothed a new bandage over Eerie’s shoulder. He waited for her to elaborate.

“He basically said that I was really messed up and it had all been a mistake.”

Bruce grunted; it was his favorite way to not say things. Eerie decided to not let him get away with it and waited for him to break the silence. “But you’re still working the case,” he said as he started cleaning up the space around her.

Eerie gave half a shrug, careful of her shoulder. “Jason can say a lot of things, but he can’t say I’m not a professional.” She felt a little chill run through her. “Besides, these Untitled are really, really not good, and I think Jason may be the only one who can take care of them. Some kind of special training or something.” She cringed a little; even she could hear the infatuation that was still in her voice despite everything, so she said nothing more. Instead, she swung her feet a little, eyes on the floor, until she realized that Bruce had stopped moving around the med bay. When she looked up, he was watching her with his arms crossed, the barest hint of a smile on his face. She glowered a little. “Are you going to tell me how adorable this is, too? ‘Cause you’re looking real smug for a man who sneaks off to sleep with Catwoman.”

Bruce just walked away, grin lingering on his face, but as she watched him head for the manor, she saw that threads connecting him to each of his sons had evened out. She had at least given  _ him  _ some peace of mind.

She sighed, and headed to her computer terminal. She had no access to Omni here, and therefore all her previous research had been lost, but given her current situation, she had taken up Bludhaven as her next search location. It had been easy enough, especially with Dick’s connections, to find the missing liver murders again, and Eerie had quickly realized that her working vacation was over and she was back to watching the mob: all the victims had been members of organized crime syndicates. There had been a lot more of them, too, than in Cherbourg -- eight that she had found, going all the way back to 1982. Most had been middle-to-high level enforcers of different groups, but the most recent of the murders, three years previously, had been Theodore Landraal, then head of the Morning Oyster syndicate. Another notable loss was the accountant/lawyer of the Japes Family, back in ‘98. There didn’t seem to be any pattern to it, though, nothing to indicate motives, unless the Untitled did actually get information from eating livers and most of the victims were simply recon missions.

Two and a half weeks after she had returned to Gotham, Eerie had exhausted her available resources and decided it was time to do some legwork. She managed to rent a cheap apartment on the top floor of a tall building in one of the neighborhoods where Bludhaven’s crime syndicates frequently took interest. Bruce declared her fit for field duty, but didn’t like the idea of her setting up in unfamiliar territory alone and, while she rolled her eyes a little at his worry, she also saw his point. “Take Damian with you,” he suggested. Damian had scowled ferociously; he had recently been benched again, but the prospect of doing reconnaissance with Eerie wasn’t exactly the break in his punishment he had been hoping for. She smiled sweetly at him. “That’s a good idea,” she said. “Damian gets so concerned about his studies when I’m away.” The kid’s scowl had deepened but he had obediently begun packing his gear.

Eerie dipped into her own savings to furnish the two-bedroom apartment with mattresses, basic kitchen appliances and tools, and a beat-up couch and coffee table, but Damian used his allowance to outfit the mostly empty living/dining room with training equipment. “There’s no telling how long it will actually take you to find anything,” he told her as delivery men brought in a variety of large packages to their new shared home, “and I refuse to let my training suffer for want of appropriate facilities.” Eerie had just shrugged; she was pretty sure that Bruce had given Damian strict instructions regarding her continued physical therapy, but he shouldn’t have worried. Eerie was determined to be back to her old self by the time she faced Jason Todd again.

She and Damian fell into a routine, sharing cooking duties, training together -- with Damian even limiting the number of comments he made about how slow and weak she was -- and talking about his latest reading assignment, Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. As she had expected, Damian thoughts on utilitarianism largely justified his own already-held worldview. “This is why I think Father’s prohibition of killing is not as ‘moral’ as he makes it out to be,” Damian opined over the garlicky bowl of freekeh and cauliflower that he had prepared for their dinner. “The elimination of one criminal would bring greater aggregate happiness than that one person’s subjective suffering.”

“But what about the person’s family? Wouldn’t they suffer from the loss?” Eerie asked as she munched a piece of cauliflower; the kid wasn’t a bad cook when he had the ingredients he had grown up eating.

“Perhaps, but the total benefit to society outweighs whatever they may suffer.”

“But what kind of criminals are we talking about here?”

“All of them.”

“So a man who steals from a department store deserves to die, even though the suffering it would incur on him and his family outweighs the material loss of the store?”

“The man should not have broken the law. He knew there would be consequences to his actions.”

“Your father has broken the law. Leaving aside the issues of vigilantism and violent assault on a whole number of people, he’s caused millions of dollars in property damage. Are you saying that economic loss should outweigh your potential suffering as we decide whether or not Bruce Wayne should die?” 

Damian picked at his food for a few moments in silence. “It is perhaps difficult to compare psychological suffering to economic suffering.”

“Well, then, who can decide? Who should judge what counts as benefit and what counts as suffering?” Damian didn’t answer, so Eerie continued. “Look, I usually get all Socratic with you, but I’m going to tell you how I really feel. In theory, I like utilitarianism; I think it can be a good way for us to negotiate practical moral action. But too often, the people weighing the benefit and the suffering are people who are already in power, people who don’t understand what benefit and suffering might look like for the poor, or for people in developing nations, or for women or sexual minorities. And I think it’s hard to figure out what will bring the greatest pleasure to the most people, or at least alleviate the most suffering, if we don’t first understand all the possible kinds of suffering we may not have direct experience with.”

Their conversation had ended there that night with Damian stalking off to the kitchen with his empty dishes, but Eerie wasn’t overly concerned. The kid had a richer inner life than Bruce really gave him credit for; he listened even when he grumbled and thought about things long after they were immediately relevant. 

The nights were spent on the work that had brought them there, but it had been difficult to figure out exactly where to start. Eerie had spent years documenting the intra- and inter-connections of Gotham City’s criminal organizations, but in Bludhaven, apart from a little outdated information Dick had been able to pass on, she was largely starting from square one. Given that the Morning Oysters, whose name came from their association with Bludhaven’s fish market, had suffered the most recent loss, that was the logical place to start, but actually locating the man who had taken Theodore Landraal’s place, his nephew Henry, was not an especially easy task. Eerie half-heartedly hoped that Henry Landraal would, somehow, prove to be the Untitled and that this chapter of the case would be easily closed, but she wasn’t holding her breath.

So Kairos and Robin spent several nights perched above the fish market that served as one of the Morning Oysters many fronts, with Kairos watching who came in and out and trying to make sense of their various connections as quickly as possible. Robin chafed a little under the slow nature of the work but declined Kairos’s suggestions that he go on patrol elsewhere in the city while she worked surveillance; Kairos suspected that Bruce had also given his son very specific instructions about his duty to watch her back. After a few nights of this, though, Kairos had identified a couple of mid-level guys that might move the investigation along and she and Robin split up to follow a couple of promising figures around the city. Over the course of the next day, both men dropped in on the same bar, establishing their next surveillance location. Dave’s, a working class bar east of downtown, appeared to be a common meeting place for mid-level guys, and soon Kairos had an idea of who was giving the orders there and she and Robin had a couple more tails, which led them to a much nicer bar, The Velvet, which was listed as being legally owned and operated by one Henry Landraal. 

“There’s no way around it,” Kairos said to Robin at the end of one night of trying unsuccessfully to lay eyes on Landraal. “I’m going to have to get inside.”

“ _ Tt _ ,” said Robin, rising in from his perch beside her, “I’ll have you inside in a matter of minutes.”

Kairos grabbed the corner of his cape and pulled him back down. “Or I could, y’know, just go in and buy a drink. If Landraal is an Untitled, kicking the hornet’s nest would be a bad idea.”

Robin made an irritated noise -- he was convinced that he could handle an Untitled just as well as Red Hood could -- but readily followed her back to the apartment they shared. The next day, Eerie went out and bought the sexist dress she had ever owned and Damian affixed a small video recording device to one of her earrings, so Eerie would have the recording to return to later and so Robin would know if she needed backup. As darkness fell, she stood in the bathroom, fiddling with her makeup and looking doubtingly at her reflection. She needed to be inconspicuous, which meant looking good but not too good, and she wasn’t necessarily the best judge of when she was skewing in either direction. She turned to Damian, who leaned in the shadows opposite the bathroom door, already suited up for the night. “You’re too young to give me a man’s opinion on this outfit, aren’t you?” she said, half-jokingly.

Robin eyed her critically before tugging at the dress to expose even more cleavage. "The longer they spend looking at you, the more time you'll have to get some useful information," he said.

Eerie overcame her surprise relatively quickly. "I guess you're not too young."

Robin sniffed. "Merely an astute student of human nature." He smirked. "Besides, it's nice to catch you in a heteronormative assumption for once.”

Eerie grinned at him. "Touche."

The plan was simple enough: Eerie would go in, buy a drink, and try to get eyes on Landraal or at least find out something about his usual haunts. Robin would wait on the rooftop opposite the bar and watch the video feed for signs of trouble, not that Eerie expected to have any. At least, nothing that a single woman at a bar didn't usually run into. 

As she got in the cab and gave the driver the address of the club, she fidgeted with her dress a little more, hoping there would be nothing that a single woman at a bar didn’t usually run into.

 

+++++

 

Wingman was slouched against the smoke stack when Batman touched down on the rooftop of Ibex Manufacturing. “Thanks for meeting me,” he said as he approached the younger man.

Wingman shrugged. “What’s the mission this time?”

“Leviathan operatives have been found with a compound that I think originated in a high security facility in Beirut. I need a sample for comparison.”

“Is this an al Ghul facility you’re sending me to?” Wingman asked.

“I don’t know, but finding that out is just as important as the sample. You’re the only operative I have that would know what to look for.”

“Well, that’s what you brought me on for. Any chance you’ve already arranged transportation? Arsenal gets upset every time I take his ship away.”

Batman handed Wingman an envelope. “There’s a Wayne Enterprises flight waiting for you at the Gotham Airport. Here’s all the necessary documentation.”

Wingman opened the envelope; inside was a passport, driver’s license, cell phone, credit card, and cash in both American dollars and Lebanese pounds. 

“The credit card will be canceled after three days.” Batman continued. “The cell phone will connect you directly to the cave, but I must remind you that…”

“That no one can know my real identity, I know.” Wingman put the items back in the envelope and tucked it into a pocket on his suit. 

There was a long pause as Batman and Wingman eyed each other, knowing there were things that still need to be said. Wingman broke the silence first. “How’s Kairos?”

“Recovering,” Batman answered. “She and Robin are in Bludhaven, trying to locate the Untitled she believes to be based there.”

“I didn’t think you’d let her out so soon.”

Batman shrugged. “She’s always made it clear that I’m not her parent.”

“But you still sent that little maniac with her.”

“She sees the reason in having someone watch her back. And it made it easier to meet with you. In any case, I’m sure you’ll be hearing from her when she has some results.” Batman stalked toward the building’s edge. 

“Bruce?”

Batman stopped, but didn’t turn around. “Yes, Jason?”

“I’m sorry I got her hurt.” 

Batman cringed inwardly a little at hearing the tone of defeat in Wingman’s voice. Dick had gone through the same thing when he had taken over the Titans, the knowledge that he was making decisions that got other people hurt instead of just himself, just like Bruce had gone through when he first took on a partner. “You shouldn’t apologize to me,” he said, “and she doesn’t want you to apologize to her, not for that. She made a choice, when she became Kairos, when she decided to work with you. She, more than most perhaps, expects you, more than most, to acknowledge her right to choose.”

Three days later, Batman checked the drop site that he and Wingman had agreed on to find a vial of liquid and a one word note: “Yes.”


	13. Chapter 13

Eerie’s night at the bar had been a bust. Landraal had been elusive, but he had eventually come out of his office for a quiet chat with the bartender. While a man with no chin told her about the second sailboat he had just bought (all the time staring at the extra flesh Damian had exposed), Eerie had studied her target, but found nothing unusual in her cursory examination. Blackmail material, for sure -- the man was deeply in love with his mistress -- but nothing to suggest that he was or had any connect to an Untitled. 

It took some firm words to escape her admirer; he had bought her a drink and felt that earned him a certain number of minutes of her attention. But Eerie was soon in a cab headed back to the temporary base, catching a glance or two of Robin’s shadow as he followed. She had known that there was only a small chance that Landraal would be her man, but she wasn’t sure what other avenues were open for investigation. The next step would be to get eyes on some of the other organizations that had suffered missing livers, but those murder were all so old that she wasn’t sure they’d turn up anything meaningful. 

By the time she had trekked up the stairs to the sixth floor apartment, Robin was in the living room waiting for her. “Well?” he said impatiently.

“Dead end,” she answered as she pulled off the heels she was wearing and tossed them across the room.

“So what now?”

Eerie shrugged. “Let me get changed and we can go stop some muggings or something.”

The kid couldn’t hold back his grin; he had obviously found the lack of violence the last few days chaffing. 

They spent a few hours prowling the rooftops and foiling criminals. Without the connections like they had with the GCPD, they couldn’t actually put anyone behind bars, but they saved a few would-be victims. Mostly Kairos watched Robin’s back as he took on a small group of thugs, also searching for any useful connections in their threads.

Eerie slept little that night. By the time Damian padded into the kitchen for the strong black tea they both enjoyed, she had covered a wall of the living room with mug shots, crime scene photos, and color-coded sticky notes, and was sitting on the couch staring at it, slipping from her own now-cooled mug.

Damian sat down next to her and looked over her handiwork. “You could have used a computer,” he said. “You probably killed half a rainforest.”

“I know,” she answered with a sigh, “but when I get stuck, I go back to paper.”

The section of wall dedicated to the Morning Oysters was by far the most densely packed. She had gone back through her surveillance footage and filled out more detailed reports on the organization’s structure, uploading it to the Batcomputer for safe-keeping and future reference. Moreover, besides Theo Landraal, the Morning Oysters had an enforcer, “Turnip” Michaels, show up liver-less. The only other organization to suffer more than one loss, as far as she knew, was the Japes family, who had also come up short one enforcer before losing the family accountant. If the incidents weren’t so far apart, she might think the Untitled was taking down enforcers just to figure out who’s who in the organization. If eating livers was, in fact, a means of gathering intelligence.

In any case, her next step was clear: getting eyes on whoever had replaced the Japes family accountant. Fortunately, shortly after the accountant’s death, Emily Japes had taking the organization pseudo-legit, legally purchasing a number of properties and setting up businesses for laundering the family’s ill-gotten funds. During this venture, the Japes began working closely with the Hewitt brothers: James the CPA and Anthony the attorney. The partnership still stood, as the Hewitt’s had brokered the recent land development deal of Cecilia Japes, Emily’s daughter.

The Hewitts’ work and home addresses were a matter of public record, and with nothing to do until dark, Eerie let Damian coach her through her PT exercises and some increasingly aggressive sparring. At the end of it, Damian had barely broken a sweat, but he did say, “You seem to have recuperated your skills, meager as they may be.”

Eerie rolled her eyes. “Thanks, Damian.” She went to the kitchen for a glass of water as Damian began performing an excessive number of chin-ups. After downing half the glass, she said to him, “If I don’t see anything useful tonight, I’m taking you back to Gotham tomorrow.”

Damian scowled but didn’t even pause in his practice. “But Father doesn’t want you here by yourself.”

“I won’t be.” Eerie took another drink, preparing for the explosion that was sure to follow her next words. “I’m going to call Red Hood in.”

Damian dropped to the floor with a growl. “I am not leaving you here with that psychotic piece of shit.”

“You know Bruce would not approve of that language out of you.”

The kid ignored her reproach in favor of glaring. “Why do we need him anyway? You said yourself that you haven’t found anything.”

Eerie sighed. “Okay, first of all, I already told you that Jason had nothing to do with me getting shot. I don’t need your protection.”

“But he hurt you,” Damian said with narrowed eyes.

Eerie rolled hers, “Yeah, but that’s between me and him. Secondly, if we don’t find anything tonight, I’ll have to switch tactics, and for that I need Red Hood and his reputation.”

Damian looked unsatisfied with that answer, but he changed strategy. “So why do I have to go home?”

Eerie barked a laugh. “How about the fact that you and Jason can’t stand each other? You think I want that kind of interpersonal conflict roiling around while I’m trying to work?”

Damian graced her with his characteristic sneer. “ _ Tt _ , I can play nice as long as  _ he  _ does.”

“Right,” Eerie said sarcastically. She finished her water in a swift gulp.

“You can’t make me leave.” Damian crossed his arms over his chest.

“You’re right,” she answered mildly, moving to place the empty glass in the sink. “I can’t make you, but your father can.” She returned to the training area to look him in the eye. “Look, I appreciate your concern. And I promise, if anything starts to go sour, I’ll call for back-up. But I’ll go completely insane if I have to be in the same room with you and Jason for more than five minutes. And more than anything right now, I want to rub how completely competent at my job I am in Jason Todd’s stupid fucking face.”

It was the shared animosity toward Jason that seemed to bring Damian around, though he continued to sulk through the rest of the afternoon. He was still sulking when they suited up and began the trek to the nicer side of town where James Hewitt lived with his second wife and two youngest children -- the oldest was in college. Kairos made a point of ignoring Damian’s sullenness, especially once they reached a perch on the house opposite of the Hewitt home. There was a glow coming through the closed shades of the first floor windows, most likely the TV, but Eerie couldn’t actually get eyes on anyone in the house. After a half an hour of this, Kairos said to Robin, “Take a quick loop around the back and tell me what you see.”

The kid moved like the wind, and Eerie felt a familiar jealousy at his grace and strength. He was back within a minute. “Kitchen window is clear,” he reported. “I could see a little of the living room.”

Kairos nodded. “Find a good surveillance point and cover me.” She let herself down from the roof with a grapple and dashed across the street to duck into the Hewitts’ backyard as Robin ghosted away in the night. The kitchen window was clear and she could just catch the back of Hewitt’s head over the couch, along with his wife’s. It was enough for Kairos’s needs and she began sorting through the threads, looking for anything out of place.

Time passed as she worked, but she didn’t really notice it until Mrs. Hewitt was walking toward her with an empty wine glass in hand. Kairos ducked down and flattened herself in the shadows against the side of the house, but Robin’s voice piped into her ear. “She didn’t see you.” A few moments, then he continued, “She’s gone.”

By then, the living room was dark and Hewitt was gone too. Kairos sighed and said to Robin, “Let’s check on the other brother.”

Anthony lived in a stylish bachelor pad downtown, but his apartment was dark when they got there. Robin patrolled the area -- hopefully working out some of his frustration -- while Kairos kept eyes on Anthony’s windows. Eventually a light came on, and the lawyer stumbled in his front door while making a valiant effort to suck the face off a notably younger man. She scrambled to register what she could in his lines: a thick thread to James, another significant one to Cecilia, and a few others she didn’t have time to follow before Anthony and his companion disappeared down a hallway. By the time they emerged in the bedroom, they had both shed most of their clothes, and Anthony sat his partner down on the bed before crouching between his thighs. Through her binoculars, Kairos could just catch Anthony’s threads as he bobbed up and down, but he regularly ducked out of her view. She growled a little in frustration, but continued watching, eventually determining that one of those prominent lines led to a lover -- not the one he was currently with -- and the other led to an old family member, probably an uncle.

Things got easier when Anthony climbed up on the bed too, and Kairos continued trying to parse the lines, but the frequent movement and the fact that Anthony’s mind was so focused on the man in front of him made it hard to find anything else of consequence. She finally gave up, lowering the binoculars from her face only to discover that Robin was perched beside his, peering through his own scope.

“How long have you been there?!” she yelped.

Robin scoffed, looking over at her. “It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”

“Whatever,” Kairos answered, not wanting to get any farther into that conversation. “We’re done here.”

 

*****

 

The message was terse:  _ Tracked down some leads on Untitled in Bludhaven. Could use assistance. _ Jason just kept staring at the screen of his phone. He supposed he should have known that she would follow the case, no matter what -- she was one of Batman’s little minions.

And he was too. He rolled his shoulders under the heat of the sun, waiting for Roy to pick him up off the roof of the swank hotel in Chicago Bruce had set him up in to keep his cover as Wingman as intact as it could be. Roy had definitely been nervous about letting him out among civilians when Jason had asked for a lift to Miami, but Jason had made a vague reference to the flight attendant and Roy had backed off. If Roy asked why he was picking Jason up in Chicago, another vague allusion should suffice.

The text had come sometime during his flight from Lebanon to Gotham, but he’d ignored it in favor of finishing the job like a good little minion. On the flight to Chicago, he had stewed, and the man sitting across the aisle from him had bought him a whiskey. He had briefly considered the possibility that Eerie was contacting him about the Untitled, that it was the  _ only _ reason she would contact him, but by the time the plane landed, he was positive that all she had sent him was a “fuck you.” And one he deserved. 

Which just made him mad. Really, was she in any position to say that kind of shit to him after the whole let’s-make-out-oh-wait-I’m-having-a-panic-attack thing?

So Jason had waited until after he’d gotten some sleep and was less cranky to actually see what Eerie had to say.

Roy seemed to know something was wrong as soon as Jason climbed aboard. “Things not go well with the flight attendant?” he asked, frowning.

“I got a message from Kairos,” Jason answered with a shrug and an attempt to look nonchalant. “She said she’s been tracking the Untitled in Bludhaven and she could use some help.”

Roy watched Jason for a long moment, long enough that Jason started to glare at him, before saying, “So what do you want to do, Jaybird?”

Jason sighed. “I guess we go home and grab our gear, then head to Bludhaven.”

Roy grinned. “Gear’s in the back. Kori can meet us there.”

“What, did she contact you too?” Was that a little disappointment he heard in his own voice?

“Nah,” Roy answered, as he lifted the ship off the roof. “When you left, you didn’t seem to be in the best frame of mind. I didn’t know what kind of trouble you might have gotten yourself into, so I brought, you know, the arsenal.”

“Well then,” said Jason, not entirely sure how to feel about his friend’s apparent lack of trust in his ability to keep a low profile. “I guess I’ll let her know we’re coming.”

_ ETA 45 minutes _ , he texted.  _ Got a place for us to stay? _

A few minutes later, he received an address.  _ I’ve got the top floor apartment on the north side _ , Eerie wrote.

“You think Kori’ll be okay with this?” Jason asked Roy suddenly.

He was a little surprised when Roy frowned again. “I don’t think she remembers much of what happened,” Roy said.

“Well,” Jason started, “alien memory…”

“I don’t think so,” Roy went on. “I mean, it was only about 12 hours later. For her to forget that fast... “ he trailed off.

“So what do you think is going on?” Jason asked.

Roy’s mouth tightened. “I don’t know. And I don’t know why she won’t talk to me about it.”

Silence settled between them as Jason considered the implications of a rift between Roy and Kori. Admittedly, he had often wondered if how much of Kori’s all-humans-look-the-same thing was a way to keep her distance, but it was concerning that Roy seemed to be worried that Kori was keeping something from him. Maybe she was worried about another romance with a human going down in flames, or maybe it was cross-cultural misunderstandings.

Funny thing was that the one person who might be able to clear some of this up was the Golden Boy, but neither Jason nor Roy really wanted to talk to him. Ever. 

“So what kind of reception you expecting?” Roy asked, interrupting Jason’s thoughts.

“Cold but professional,” he answered without hesitation, then he grimaced. “Unless she’s bringing us all the way out to Bludhaven for some kind of revenge.”

“Better suit up then, “ Roy replied, “cause we’ll be there in about fifteen.”

“Roy, it’s the middle of the day. Bats only pull off elaborate revenge plots at night.” Jason grinned tightly. “I should know.”

Roy shrugged, then checked his phone. “Kori says she’ll be here in an hour or so.”

The apartment building that Eerie had directed them to was a shithole in an even shittier part of town. Jason wondered for a second if they were breaking into the wrong place as he and Roy climbed in the window from the fire escape, but there was an inordinate amount of exercise equipment and a note on the fridge with his name on it. Roy started messing around with a pull-up bar as Jason read it:  _ Went out for food. Don’t break the equipment; it’s Damian’s. -E _

Jason sighed as he heard a crash behind him. “You’re going to have Baby Bat breathing down my neck, Roy.”

“Shit, didn’t know it was Little D’s,” Roy said, stepping away from the gear. “You don’t think he here, do ya? He gives me the creeps.”

“Doubt it,” Jason answered. “He hasn’t tried to stab me yet.” He wandered down the hall and peeked into an open bedroom. It was empty except for a bare mattress. The other bedroom was Eerie’s; Jason was familiar with the way she tended to store her stuff in a pile in one corner. It made the dress and heels in the closet even more out of place. “Looks like Eerie’s the only current occupant,” he said as he came back into the living room to find Roy studying a wall covered in photos, clippings, and notes that Jason had somehow missed before.

“How much do you know about the Bludhaven mob?” Roy asked without looking away.

Jason shrugged. “I stuck to Gotham. I know the Morning Oysters cuz they tried to get a toe hold a few years back, and I know that the Bludhaven Reds do some small-times arms dealing down river, but that’s about it.” He looked at Roy. “You?”

Roy shook his head. “I always tried to stay out of this city.” He gave a sheepish grin. “The smack was always shit.”

Jason grunted in acknowledgement and left Eerie’s mural of murder behind. He was just opening the fridge when a key began rattling in the lock. Eerie had appeared with one bag that smelled delicious and another that looked like laundry. She saw Roy first, who grinned a little and immediately moved to take the food. “Hey Eerie,” he said lightly. “Nice digs. Is this Chinese?”

“Hi Roy,” she answered, not nicely but politely at least. “Thanks, and yes.” She turned and saw Jason, still standing in front of the open fridge. She nodded at him. “Where’s Kori?”

“She’ll be here soon,” Roy answered, setting the food on the counter and opening cabinets in search of plates, shutting the fridge door in the process. “Say something,” he muttered under his breath.

“So what’s the plan?” Jason blurted. Eerie had only wanted to talk the case, so he would only talk the case.

He was surprised when her shoulders relaxed slightly. “I’ve been tracking three men whose predecessors had their livers eaten. They’re all in the mob…”

“Who?” Jason interrupted.

Eerie raised her eyebrow a little but answered the question. “Henry Landraal of the Morning Oysters and the Hewitt brothers, who work for the Japes family. 

“So what do you want us to do?” Roy asked with a mouth full of lo mein.

“Help with surveillance,” she said, moving down the hall with the laundry, “and maybe interrogation.”

Jason looked at Roy, who had stopped chewing, eyebrows high. “Interrogation?” he called, his own brow furrowing. It wasn’t that he  _ couldn’t  _ do that kind of thing, but he’d rather not…

Eerie reappeared sans laundry bag. “What’s most immediate in a person’s mind is what’s easiest for me to read. Sometimes it can muddle what’s more distant. So it’s easy for me to see how Roy feels about Kori,” she said, glancing Roy’s way, “but if I want to know how he feels about, say, Oliver Queen, it helps to say the name.”

Roy went pale and deliberately turned his attention back to his plate, but Eerie continued despite the warning looks Jason gave her. “If you sit a man down and make him think you’ll hurt him to get information, his mind turns to all kinds of things he doesn’t want you to know. And the Red Hood does have a certain reputation.” She gazed coolly at Jason.

He rolled his eyes. “If you think it’ll get us to the Untitled.” He picked up a plate of his own. “So we’ll start tonight?”

Eerie stifled a yawn. “Yeah, I’m gonna sleep for a while. Roy, you and Kori can take the other bedroom. There’s clean sheets in there, just don’t wreck it. I’d like to get my security deposit back. Jason, you’re on the couch.” And with that she stalked down the hall and shut the door to her room.

“Well,” said Roy in a low voice, “definitely cold.”

“But not entirely professional,” Jason added as he scooped out some fried rice. He started to say more when the door to Eerie’s bedroom opened again. She emerged and laid three identical cylinders on the counter between Jason and Roy. “For if I start projecting again,” she said by way of explanation. “Works just like an epi-pen. It’ll knock me out enough to stop the projecting without actually rendering me unconscious, so you can use it in the field if needed.” She looked Roy in the eye. “One for each of you.” Then she stalked off again.

Jason and Roy each picked up one of the hypos and studied them. “At least professional enough,” Jason said.

“Yeah,” said Roy, pocketing the one he was holding and the one still on the counter and turning his attention entirely back to his food.


	14. Chapter 14

Eerie slept fitfully through the afternoon, and her dreams were especially vivid -- in one, she decided to stick about a hundred straight pins in her mouth, then had to pick them out of the flesh of her tongue and throat one by one. She snorted as she remembered it later; apparently her subconscious was really unhappy with having Jason here. Still, she forced herself to stay in bed until the sun was setting, emerging from her room in a pair of sweats and a tee shirt to find the Outlaws watching something on a laptop perched on the coffee table. Kori looked up at her approach and smile broadly. “Hello, Eerie,” she said. “It’s good to see you.”

“Yeah, you too,” Eerie replied, her returned smile not quite so broad. Still it was good to see that Kori didn’t seem to hold a grudge. As she turned to the pull-up bar, she heard the sound of a solid  _ thump _ from the laptop and Roy and Jason started cackling in that way boys did when they watched someone else get hit in the junk. Eerie shook her head slightly and pulled her body up, testing out how the shoulder felt. It was pretty well healed, but still occasionally sore, and tonight, the muscles down her neck and into her back on that side protested a little. So she did a few more pull-ups until the movement felt more fluid, then dropped back down. She’d get enough of a work-out prowling the rooftops tonight anyway.

There was exactly one serving left in each of the take-out containers in the fridge, which Eerie dumped onto a plate and started eating cold. Someone in the video screamed and Jason and Roy laughed hard again. “Seriously, Eerie,” Roy said, “you gotta see this.”

Eerie moved toward the couch where they were clustered together. “What are you watching?”

“Parkour fails,” Jason said, still grinning.

She watched for a minute, thinking about how superior they all sounded, laughing at civilians for attempting to pull off the kinds of moves they could do in their sleep. Then a guy tried to jumped over a park bench and ate turf and she lost it. 

“You know, a lot of this wouldn’t happen if they wore shoes with better grip,” Jason commented after another guy slid across a concrete barrier and into a wall. 

“I kneed myself in the face so many times when I first started,” Eerie added during a slow-motion replay.

“Yeah, that’s one benefit of the helmet,” Jason said.

Eerie caught the little look that Roy exchanged with Jason, and the little burst of friendly encouragement that traveled along their thread. She rolled her eyes; apparently Roy was intent on helping Jason smooth things over. 

Once the video had concluded -- it was at least ten minutes long -- Eerie took her plate back into the kitchen, stuffing the last few bites of fried rice into her mouth. Kori stood by the window, eyes darting around this new city. “It’s very dirty here,” she said distractedly.

“In more ways than one.” Jason’s tone was dark as he joined her. “Even Dickie-bird’s enthusiasm wasn’t enough.” His line to Dick shimmered with its usual jealousy and disgust, but also a touch of respect. Perhaps Jason thought (like Eerie did) that Bludhaven would have broken a lesser person. Not that Dick didn’t have a few scars…

“So what’s the plan tonight?” Roy asked, stretching out on the sofa now that he had it to himself. “Surveillance, right?”

“Yeah,” Eerie answered as she sat her plate in the sink. She drifted over her crime wall. “I’d like to get a better sense of where Henry Landraal and Anthony Hewitt spend their time.”

“Not the other Hewitt?” Jason asked.

Eerie shrugged. “He seems like a real homebody, pretty easy to find. I’m less sure of where the other two are on any given night.”

“Alright,” Jason said, taking charge. “We'll split into two teams. I know a little about the Morning Oysters, so I'll take Landraal.”

“Start at The Velvet,” Eerie said. “That's the last place I saw him.”

“So me and Eerie will take Hewitt,” Roy inserted before Jason could name teams. Eerie watched the glance that passed between them. Roy was both annoyed and commiserating with Jason; he either wanted to avoid Jason or talk to Eerie alone. She wished she knew which one.

Jason just nodded at Roy. “Let’s get suited up, then.”

It was a drizzly night, and Kairos grimaced as she evaluated visibility. As Red Hood and Starfire headed in the direction of Landraal’s bar, she and Arsenal started toward downtown. “We'll check his apartment first,” she explained as they darted over the rooftops, “and if he's not there, one of us can go check his office.”

“Roger that,” Arsenal chirped back, doing a forward flip for no apparent reason. 

Hewitt’s apartment was dark. Kairos quickly scanned the surrounding area with her binoculars, but didn’t see any sign of the man. “Stay here,” she said to Arsenal. “I’ll check the office and be right back.”

Hewitt’s office was only a few blocks away, but it was just as dark as his apartment. When she got back to the roof she’d left Arsenal on, he was fiddling idly with a little drone. “Any luck?” he asked when he heard her behind him.

“Nah,” she answered. “Do you know anything about Bludhaven’s gay clubs?” Perhaps Hewitt made a habit of finding handsome young men to bring home.

Arsenal made a face. “Not really my scene, and not really my city.”

Kairos hummed in response, then flicked her communicator, switching to a line back to Gotham. “This is Kairos, calling for Penny-One.”

“Penny-One here,” came Alfred’s also reassuring voice. “How may I assist you?”

“Can you get me a line to Nightwing?” she asked. “I need some intel.”

“Please hold.” It was a testament to how much better Alfred was with trusting people to say what they meant instead of assuming he needed to pry that he simply worked on her request instead of assuming she was in dire need of help. About a minute later, NIghtwing said, “Kairos, this is Nightwing. What do you need?”

“Gay clubs for rich men,” Kairos answered, and she couldn’t help smiling imagining the look on Nightwing’s face.

“Grinder,” Nightwing replied promptly. “There’s also Plato’s Palace; it’s a bit more understated.”

“And if you were looking for a one night stand?”

“Probably Grinder. Gotta ask though, is this business or personal?”

Kairos’s grin grew. “Business. Me and Arsenal are tracking a lead, but he’s not at work or at home.”

“Well, in that case, you know how sometimes girls will go to gay bars to dance and not get hit on? Grinder isn’t one of those places.”

“Duly noted. Thanks, Nightwing.”

“No problem. And tell Arsenal I said hi.”

Kairos turned back to her partner for the night. “Nightwing says hi.”

Arsenal paused in his work on the tiny robot for just a split second, but Kairos caught the rush of warm feeling. “Well, that’s nice of him,” was what the redhead ended up saying. “So, gay bar?”

“Yeah, a place called Grinder is our next stop, I guess.”

Arsenal grunted in acknowledgment and set the drone on the edge of the roof before pulling out his phone and opening a video stream of the apartment building across from them. As Kairos watched, the drone shifted itself until the video came into focus, then shifted itself again to peer around a corner until the door was in view. “So this little guy will ping me if it senses movement at the door,” Arsenal explained.

“I knew I called y’all for a reason,” Kairos said before she thought about it, then shut her mouth quickly.

Arsenal beamed up at her. “Hey, we’re good for a few things,” he said. He stood, hand rubbing the back of his neck as he straightened. “Also, I, uh, jumped to some conclusions, and I want to apologize for that.” When he raised his eyes, his mouth was set in a crooked, sad smile.

Kairos, relieved in the open and subsequently flushed under the bridge, returned the smile and said, “Apology accepted. I know you were just trying to protect your people.”

“Yeah, I guess you do.”

Grinder was relatively close, a renovated warehouse with a line out front and a set of bouncers that were as much eye-candy as they were deterrents. The club had no windows. Kairos carefully scanned the line of hopeful entrants. “No Hewitt out here,” she said, turning her gaze onto the roof of the club and spying a ventilation tower. “Looks like we can sneak in.”

“Or I could hack the security cameras,” Arsenal said, already working his fingers over his phone. 

“That would be easier.” Kairos watched over his shoulder without having any idea of what he was doing until scenes from inside the club began flickering through, one after the other. The place was pretty packed for a weekday, full of men of all shapes and sizes. It took a while before one of them spotted their target. Hewitt was lounging in a corner, watching the dance floor with a martini glass in hand. “So we just sit here and watch him?” Arsenal asked.

“You sit here and watch,” Kairos answered. “I'm gonna go check on his brother. Call me if he moves.”

Arsenal sounded like he started to protest, but Kairos was already jumping off the roof in the direction of the rich neighborhood. As she ran, she thumbed her comms to reopen the channel the Outlaws were using. Arsenal was updating Red Hood. “I’m keeping tabs on Anthony Hewitt at Grinder downtown. Kairos is headed out to check on his brother.”

“You’re splitting up?” Hood sounded annoyed.

“It’s surveillance, man,” Arsenal answered. “Lighten up.”

“I’m just gonna get eyes on James, make sure he’s home like I think he will be,” Kairos explained, “then I’ll be back downtown.”

“Fine,” Hood snapped. “I expect an update in twenty.”

_ Wow, he’s either really angry at me or really guilt-ridden _ , Kairos thought, launching herself toward a fire escape and shimmying up to the top of a little strip mall. She was leaning toward guilt-ridden; Dick had been right when he pointed out how alike Bruce and Jason were when it came to dealing with anything emotional. So the question, then, was what exactly Jason felt guilt-ridden about: just her getting shot, or her getting shot  _ and _ him kissing her, or her getting shot  _ and _ him kissing her  _ and _ him being an ass to her so she’d go home? No way to tell yet, though if Arsenal’s apology was anything to go on, Jason at least felt bad that Roy had snapped at her.

Perched across the street from the Hewitt house once again, Kairos felt a little smug that Jason was suffering.

Just as she was expecting, the lights in the house were dim and the TV seemed to be on. She tried to peek in the front windows to no avail and ended up at the same kitchen window in the back, though she felt more than a little exposed without Robin keeping an eye out. James Hewitt was just barely visible, but Kairos had a good line of sight on his wife, so she started sorting through the strands just to see if anything stood out, trying not to let herself get lost in her work since she didn’t have anyone on her six.

The wife was full of deep relationships with friends and family, a real extrovert it seemed. She seemed to a certain dislike of her brother-in-law, and Kairos got the impression that she didn’t approve of Tony’s playboy lifestyle, especially after a segment on the nightly news showed Bruce Wayne with two women on his arms at a recent charity event resulted in a surge of disgust toward Tony. Kairos didn’t see anything too surprising, though she whispered a few notes into her cowl about how many of her husband’s business associates Mrs. Hewitt knew personally.

Her focus was interrupted by Red Hood’s voice in her ear. “Kairos, what’s your sitrep?”

She sighed, glancing around for a shadowed area to climb to the roof. “Leaving James’s place now,” she reported softly. “How about you?” Hell if she was going to let him think that she just delivered reports to him on command like he was her boss.

“Landraal is holed up in his bar, and Starfire’s got an eye on him.”

“That doesn’t really answer the question.”

There was a silence. Kairos really hoped Hood was grinding his teeth. “I’m down by the docks, letting folks know that Red Hood is in town.”

Kairos hummed in understanding, pausing in the dark to evaluate her next move. “You looking to rattle the Oysters a little?”

“Never hurts to stick with what you know,” Hood said. “And it might get Landraal to do something out of the ordinary.”

“This time of night on a Tuesday, they’ve probably got one of their dog fights going in a warehouse on Loudon,” Kairos supplied. “Not usually Red Hood’s thing…”

“It’ll make a nice spectacle, and nothing makes a good rumor like a spectacle.”

She thought considered things for a moment, then said, “I’ll head that way, see what I can see when the ants scurry.”

“Let me know when you’re in position.”

Ah, now that had sounded more like two people working together and less like a leader issuing orders.

Kairos had managed to cover a few blocks before Arsenal was calling her. “Hewitt’s moving,” he said. 

“Does he have someone with him?” she asked. If he did, it was likely they would go back to his apartment.

“No, he’s leaving alone. Want me to stay on him?”

“Yeah, and get whatever video footage you can.”

“You got it.”

It took her about thirty minutes to get to a good spot above the Loudon Street warehouse that the Morning Oysters used for various enterprises. Crouching in the dark, she studied the two men working the door until she heard Hood’s footsteps behind her. “This is the place?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Kairos answered, and as if on cue, a third figure stumbled into view and was ushered in by the heavies. 

“Dog fight, you said?” Red Hood was double checking the magazine in one of his pistols. Kairos knew it was just to give his hands something to do; there was no way he’d be out on the street without having his equipment in pristine condition.

“Last two Tuesdays it’s been dog fights,” she said. “Robin did not take it well.”

“Oh? Wouldn’t have taken Demon Spawn for an animal lover.”

Kairos shrugged. “B got him a dog. And then they came home with a cow? Robin’s a vegetarian now.”

Red Hood snorted. “Well I guess I better save those poor puppies before I end up even higher on Little D’s hit list.”

Seconds after Hood disappeared from her side, he was dropping down on the door men and they were dropping like rocks to the pavement. Kairos hadn’t been expecting him to just waltz in the front door, but it did suggest that Red Hood now owned this town. In less than a minute, a couple of shots rang out and there was a flurry of activity at the door as the attendees fled the Red Hood’s wrath. Kairos also noted some movement on the other side of the building, and grappled her way to another vantage point where she could watch who was coming out the back exit. Several of these were men she had seen before during her and Robin’s stake-outs, and she smoothly pulled a little gun from her belt and shot a slew of tiny tracking devices into the fray, hoping that a least a few would catch and give them some new intel.

The sound of gunfire had begun in earnest at this point, and Kairos wasn’t sure if she was more concerned about Hood getting shot or who he might be shooting. She wondered if he considered this warehouse as part of their deal, since she had technically helped him find it and the people inside. Batman would give her hell if any humans died while she was teamed up with Hood. Damian, on the other hand, might start to like Jason a little more if he came out of this with a couple of dead animal abusers. 

The ants were scattering too fast for her to make much of their threads, apart from an overwhelming fear of Red Hood and slightly milder fear of Landraal. Kairos shot every last one of her trackers, then pulled out her phone -- at least a dozen of the twenty-five she’d shot were moving, though it was possible that a couple of the men had been double-tagged. Still, it was better than nothing. As the building seemed to clear the gun play also died down, then after about a minute of silence, the sound of a single shot rang out.  _ Execution? _ Kairos asked herself, a sinking feeling in her gut. Then Hood said over the comms, “Make the call, Kairos.”

By the time Kairos had finished telling the 911 operator that she’d heard gun fire on Loudon Street, Hood was stalking out the back exit with a burden on his back. He couldn’t get the weight into a secure fireman’s carry to grapple up to where she was, so Kairos dropped down beside him. The weight was a dog, unconscious and bleeding. “Can’t get a good hold,” Hood complained, “and we need to move.”

Kairos thought for a moment, then pulled a length of cord from her suit and started tying the animal to Hood’s back and shoulders. “Only one dog?” she asked.

“The other wasn’t going to make it,” he answered shortly, and Kairos felt relief rush through her briefly at realizing that the single shot had been an act of mercy rather than vengeance. “I sedated this one,” Hood went on. “Now what do we do with it?”

Kairos thumbed her comms then went back to tying knots. “Arsenal?”

“I’m here.” Arsenal sounded a little tense, probably had heard the sound of sirens in their general direction, like she was hearing now.

“We need an emergency veterinary clinic,” she said, finishing her work and gesturing for Red Hood to grapple up to the roofs before the cops arrived, following closely behind him.

“Aw c’mon,” Arsenal griped. “Don’t you know of at least one clinic around here that won’t ask how Jay got shot?”

“Not for me, idiot,” Hood snapped back. “For this damn dog.”

“You got a dog?” 

“Find a vet, Arsenal,” Hood growled. “Make a call if you have to. Starfire, you there?”

“Yes, Red Hood, I can hear you.” Starfire sounded vaguely amused. “But I never agreed to allowing pets in my home.”

Hood ignores the goad, taking determined steps in the direction of downtown. “Is Landraal still at the bar?”

“Yes.”

“Kairos is coming to relieve you.” Hood gave her a look and Kairos nodded her agreement, taking off at a faster pace with his voice still in her comms. “I need you to come help me. This fucker is heavy.”

Even moving fast, it took Kairos fifteen minutes to get to the Velvet. She waved distractedly at Starfire as they passed in the night. As she crouched on a fire escape with a view of Landraal’s office window -- the curtains were open just enough for her to get the barest hint of the interior tonight -- Kairos checked the trackers, unsurprised to find a couple closing in on her position. Sure enough, in a couple of minutes, one of the guys from the warehouse scurried up to the back door of the bar and inside. Kairos frowned; she really needed to see in that window, see Landraal’s reaction to the news, but there wasn’t an especially stable or hidden perch. Realizing her only real option, she groaned slightly. Her shoulder was not going to be happy about this.

Kairos swung over to the bar’s roof, then secured a grappling line to sturdy pipe. After taking off her cape, she wove a quick harness around her body with second line, focusing on her shoulders and hips, and in less than a minute, she was slowing easing herself over the edge of the roof toward the window head first. It was the kind of thing that Nightwing and Catwoman wouldn’t have thought twice about, but Kairos had to focus on fighting off the vertigo for a few long seconds until her weight caught firmly against the cords along the tops of her shoulders.

It’s worth it, though -- she had a clear view of the entire room and was only minimally exposed. She stuck a tiny mic to the glass and switched her comms to its frequency.

“--gan is here, boss,” the tall black bodyguard was saying, a phone held to his ear. “He says he’s got news from the docks.”

Landraal looked up from his work at the desk, blinking slowly. “Send him up, then.” The mob boss tidied up the papers on his desk as his guard passed along his orders. Kairos focused her attention on Landraal’s threads; if she had to guess, he’d been thinking about a few of his lieutenants before this interruption, but now his mind had turned to the man headed up the stairs, Morgan. For his part, Morgan was sputtering about Red Hood the moment the bodyguard opened the door, but Kairos only listened with half an ear as she watched which lines came to the forefront of Landraal’s mind as he learned about the assault. The line to Morgan was full of skepticism to begin, but as that began to fade, a line linking Landraal and Red Hood began to form and it was full of anger -- nothing personal, just the righteous indignation of having someone take something that belongs to you. Behind that line, though, Landraal seemed to be feeling a remarkable amount of fear for his mistress. While going after someone’s family was considered in bad taste -- it was what separated the professional criminals from the criminally insane in most books -- Kairos supposed that it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to imagine a competing crime lord targeting a mistress. Still, this was the second time his mistress had come up so sharply. It would be nice to get eyes on her. Maybe Hood could muscle a name out of someone…

“Anybody else reporting hits?” Landraal snapped at bodyguard.

The guard glanced down at his phone again. “No reports in yet.” He shrugged. “Maybe this was just an opening move. Wanted to let everyone know he was in Bludhaven.”

“Well, I want to know  _ why the fuck _ he’s in Bludhaven,” Landraal growled. “Last I heard, he and the Reds had a deal -- they’d quite dealing in Gotham and he’d stay out of Bludhaven.” The boss brooded for a moment. “Get Fergus to call his contact, find out if the Reds have done anything to make the Hood mad. Maybe he just made a mistake tonight, thought he was hitting back against them.”

Kairos grinned a little.  _ That’s right, _ she thought,  _ just keep hoping the Red Hood couldn’t possibly be after you _ .

“Casualties, Morgan?” Landraal asked next. 

Morgan shook his head. “I dunno, boss. I got out as quick as I could to bring you the news.”

Landraal grimaced again. “Grisham, you’ll have to call our man inside BPD, find out some details.”

The bodyguard nodded and stepped out into the hall, already dialing. Kairos noted that this comment led to a thread flaring up between Grisham and another person, but not between Landraal and that same figure, so she could only assume that Landraal knew Grisham had a contact but didn’t know who that contact was. She whispered a little note into her cowl. 

Landraal dismissed Morgan with an order to find out whatever he can about what happened down by the docks, then sat there at his desk with his hands clasped in front of him, brow furrowed and jaw clenched. Kairos watched as he seemed to go through a catalogue of names in his mind, trying to decide who he could rely on if Red Hood really had decided to start a full assault on the Morning Oysters. She just kept whispering whatever names seemed to come up and whatever feelings Landraal seemed to have for them. Most of it was nonsense to her, but that wasn’t surprising -- later she’d go back through and try to match up names with known associates. 

Eventually, she realized that her body wasn’t going to be able to stay in this position much longer and manage to get back up, so she began the precarious process of reorienting herself and climbing back up to the roof, leaving the mic in place. It would short out soon in the rain, but until then, well, maybe somebody would say something interesting. That was how she did most of her best work -- being in the right place at the right time to hear someone say something interesting.


	15. Chapter 15

Red Hood was thoroughly relieved when Starfire showed up to take the weight off his shoulders; the dog had started to drool everywhere and it was seriously gross. Arsenal had managed to find a vet that agreed to meet them at her clinic, and they left the dog on the doorstep and watched until the doc showed up and got the animal inside.

And Hood was left wondering why the hell he’d just gone through all that trouble for a damn dog when the point had been to shake down the Oysters.

He and Starfire regrouped with Arsenal, who’d been watching a club called Hyperion for about an hour now. He had their target, Hewitt, on the security feed, dancing with a much younger woman. “So since when do we save animals?” Arsenal asked without looking up from his phone.

Hood didn’t answer, so Arsenal plowed on. “You think this is going to get you back in her good graces?”

“Shut it.” Hood glowered, pacing to the other side of the roof.

“What?” Arsenal asked, fake confusion in his voice. “Chicks dig men who rescue puppies.”

Starfire turned her gaze on him. “I fear it will take more than one dog to regain Kairos’s affections,” she said patiently, “but it is a good start.”

“And what makes you so sure I want that?” Hood finally snapped.

“Oh come off it,” Arsenal groaned, starting to sound really annoyed. “You like her. You’re allowed to like people, Jay.”

“We’re in the fiel--”

Arsenal cut him off. “And she seemed interested in you, before you were an idiot. Right, Kori?”

“Yes, Roy,” Starfire agreed, obviously going along with Arsenal’s sudden desire to up-end all protocol. “I think that she was very interested in Jason.”

“Right,” Arsenal said, “so the next logical step is to apologize for whatever it is that you did and hope she’ll accept your apology and then you two can get right back on track.”

Hood marched up right behind Arsenal, ready to deliver a firmly worded lecture on field protocol and  _ fucking boundaries _ , but the open, sympathetic look Starfire was giving him made him reconsider.   _ Friends, Jay _ , he reminded himself.  _ Total assholes, but friends _ . “You make it sound simple,” he said only a little harshly.

Arsenal snorted. “In so many ways, this is so much more simple that most other relationships you could have started.” Then he seemed to think of something. “I mean, you do like her? Right? I’m not just imagining that?”

Hood clenched his jaw before answering. “Yeah, I guess I like her.”

“You guess?” Arsenal barked a laugh. “God, Jaybird, you’re like a twelve-year-old just discovered that you aren’t so sure girls are icky anymore. You could give Little D a run for his money.”

“I’ve been doing a good job of not punching you so far,” Hood warned, but he sensed Starfire shift slightly behind him as he threatened her boyfriend and made a point of not moving. 

“Looks like Hewitt and his friend are on the move,” Arsenal said, suddenly changing topics. Hood refocused, saw the target and the woman he’d been dancing with exiting the club, looking quite drunk and quite amorous. Hewitt waved down a cab and for a few minutes, no one said anything as they followed the car back to Hewitt’s apartment building. Starfire continued circling overhead as Arsenal and Red Hood came to rest on the rooftop across the street, and watching Hewitt and his companion make it in the door and settle down to some heavy petting on the couch, Hood said, “Well, I think we’re done here for the night.”

Arsenal shook his head. “Kairos asked for as much video as I could get.”

Hood stared. “You’re going to record these people having sex.”

Arsenal scoffed. “Like you’ve never.”

He had no comeback, so he settled back down next to his friend, pulling out a pair of binoculars to get a better look at Hewitt. “I thought you were watching a gay bar,” he said.

“I was, but then Hewitt went to a non-gay bar.”

Hood grunted in acknowledgement, but Arsenal used the moment of silence to return to their previous conversation. “You know, this relationship is a lot simpler than it could have been. At least she understands your line of work.”

“Oh well as long as that’s sorted out,” Hood drawled sarcastically.

“But seriously, that’s, like, always the biggest hurdle, and you can just admit that you were so worried and guilty about her getting hurt that you lost your head.” Arsenal seemed to think it was all neatly tied up, sounded almost cheerful.

“I… may have insinuated that she was fucked up in the head,” Hood finally admitted.

“Oh Jaybird,” Arsenal groaned. “You really suck sometimes.”

“I know, I know!” he spat defensively, standing and pacing a few steps. “I just… I wanted her to leave before… before she got ruined from being with us, I guess.”

“Nice to know you think so highly of us,” Arsenal quipped drily.

“Me,” Red Hood corrected. “Before she got ruined by being with me.”

Arsenal heaved a sigh. “I understand your concern, but doesn’t she get to decide for herself what’s good or not good for her?”

When Roy Harper and Batman give you the same piece of advice, it’s perhaps time to reconsider your conclusions. Or at least, Red Hood mused, reconsider who you talk to on a regular basis.

“Look,” Arsenal went on, “I don’t want to tell you what to do, but I know what this case means to you, and I’d like for us to get it done in a little drama as we can from now on.” After a pause, he added with a grin, “But if I did want to tell you what to do, I’d tell you to apologize like your life depended on it and do whatever you could to make it right, because she’s worth it.”

“Duly noted,” Hood said sourly, happy the conversation seemed to be over. “Guess I better see what’s going on with Landraal.”

But he couldn’t raise Kairos on the comms, and he saw Arsenal’s face get more worried the longer he went without a response, but neither of them wanted to actually  _ say _ that there was a reason to be concerned. Instead, Arsenal said, “I think we’ve probably got enough footage here,” and grabbed the little drone that had been there when they arrived.

Red Hood sent Starfire on ahead and no one felt better when the Tamaranean said she couldn’t see Kairos on any of the rooftops near the bar. She started working her way out in a widening spiral, looking for any sign of the woman or anything else really, and Arsenal started scoping out the alleys as soon as they were within a decent range. Hood decided to hit the rooftops again, search for signs of a struggle, and he was making the jump from the building directly across the street from the bar to the building next to it when he noticed an off-color shadow on the Velvet’s wall. Kairos was dangling upside down, sans cape, in front of Landraal’s office window. “I found her,” Hood said over the comms, trying to keep the relief out of his voice. “She’s fine.”

“You want us to regroup at your position?” Arsenal asked. Hood considered, then said, “Nah, I think we’re about done for the night. You guys can head back to base. I’ll stay here until Kairos has finished whatever the hell it is she’s doing.”

“Roger that, boss,” Arsenal chirped. “We’ll round up some food, too.”

Hood swung to the top of the bar and walked quietly to the edge. He looked down at Kairos, but she didn’t seem to have noticed him. That was bad. Anyone could have come up here and snipped the line and while the fall wouldn’t likely kill her, she’s be incapacitated enough to be easy pickings. Hood scowled, then peeled off his helmet and sat down to wait. 

It was only a few minutes before Kairos’s line started to vibrate as she climbed back up. Since her entire face was covered at the moment, Red Hood couldn’t read her expression, but her body tensed for a second at seeing another figure on the roof.  _ No idea I was here _ , he griped to himself. “You didn’t answer your comms.”

“I had to switch frequencies,” she explained after pulling down the cowl that covered her nose and mouth. Her lips were in a hard line. 

“Yeah?” he said. “And what would you have done if someone other than me showed up here and snipped your line?”

“Fallen.” It’s the kind of response he would have expected from a smart ass kid like the Replacement or Demon Spawn, but her tone held no hint of snark.

“And that’s it? You would have fallen?”

“At least a little, yes.” As though that was the end of the conversation, Kairos started undoing the harness on her body and the cord on the pipe, coiling it back up neatly and tucking into a pocket on her belt. Hood watched her in disbelief, then realized that what seemed to put him off guard was that she didn’t argue back -- not when he talked about killing people, not when he told her off for risky behavior... not even when he called her crazy. She had just calmly asked about the case -- well, maybe not  _ calmly _ , but in at a non-yelling volume. And he wasn’t sure what it said about him that he just assumed yelling was a standard form of communication. Before he thought about it, his discovery was coming out his mouth: “You don’t like arguing with people, do you?”

Her head snapped up to look at him, studying his face for a minute. “Not really, no,” she said finally. “I mean, I don’t mind debating in fairly calm tones, but good rhetoric rarely happens when people get to the point of raised voices.”

“It’s…”  _ Aggravating? Infuriating? Really fucking weird? _

She seemed to sense his loss of words and smiled tightly. “Not the way things usually happen in the Cave?” she supplied.

“Yeah, I guess.”

She shrugged and pulled her cape back over her shoulders, securing the clasps. “Our  _ family _ , as it stands, has a terrible habit of either not saying what they mean, or saying what they mean in the worst possible way.” She grimaced. “Often in the form of orders.”

Oh.  _ Oh _ . That was the problem here; he was sounding too much like the Bat. He tamped down on small wave of disgust at himself. When he looked back up at Kairos, she was watching him. Not with any sense of superiority or hostility, just watching. He swallowed. “Okay, let me try this again,” he said.

She nodded for him to continue.

He took a deep breath. “First of all, I said some shitty things, and I’m sorry.” He stopped, took another breath. “Secondly, I know you might be pissed with me, and that’s completely understandable, but if we’re going to work together, we need to communicate better.”

Her head tilted to one side, and Red Hood got a real sense that she was watching things no one else could see for a moment. Then she said, “I accept your apology. And I will work on better communication.”

Hood nodded, suddenly breathing a little easier. “Arsenal and Starfire are back at base. They probably have some food. Anything else you need to do tonight?”

She shook her head. “I’ve got plenty to work on.”

Hood barked a laugh as they both turned in the direction of the crappy apartment that was currently home. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure Arsenal has a sex tape for you.”

Kairos didn’t look surprised. “Man or a woman this time?”

“Woman.”

“Hm,” she said. “Interesting.”

 

+++++

 

Dick got a text from Eerie a little before 4 am, just as he was getting out of the shower:  _ He apologized. Like, actually used the words “I’m sorry.” WTF. _

A grin spread from one side of his face to the other. He sent a message back:  _ Damn girl. He must really have it bad for you. _

A few minutes later, Eerie replied:  _ I don’t know if I’m happy or scared or angry or dying.  _

“She would completely freak out,” Dick muttered to himself, typing.  _ It’s called infatuation. Enjoy it. _

_ I don’t think that’s possible. BTW I think Damian might be gay. Or at least not straight. Someone should have some kind of sex talk with him. Not me. Or Alfred. Definitely not B. _

Dick rolled his eyes. She would completely freak out  _ and  _ pawn this kind of thing off on him.

 

+++++

 

After Jason and Eerie had returned to the apartment, there had been food, then showers, then sleep. At least for a while. When he was awakened by the sounds of Eerie fiddling with a coffee pot, there was enough light getting through the makeshift blackout curtains he’d put up the night before to tell him it was around mid-morning. The woman was taking pains to be quiet, so Jason pretended to still be asleep. He even managed to doze back off. When he woke up next, Eerie was sitting on the coffee table facing her murder wall, with a video feed running on her laptop and small pile of post-it notes collecting on the floor. Her nose was almost touching the screen of the computer. 

“You’re gonna rot your eyeballs,” Jason said, gruffly.

Eerie didn’t look over at him, but she grinned a little. “So I’ve heard. Sorry I woke you.”

Jason grunted nonchalantly and sat up, letting his blanket side down his chest. “There still coffee?”

“Yeah.”

Jason pulled on a pair of sweats and a t-shirt as he clambered out of the nest he’d made on the couch. He poured the last of the coffee into a mug and said, “You finding anything interesting?”

“Interesting? Sure,” she said as he sat back down on the couch. “Meaningful? Who knows.” She was watching the same video clip over and over, a piece of footage Roy had taken as Hewitt came in the door with his companion. “So last night, Morgan was telling Landraal about your hit on the warehouse at exactly 1:52 AM. I double checked my audio recordings.” 

_ Like I’d doubt you on this _ , Jason thought, but said nothing.

“And this is the video from that same time, and right here,” Eerie pointed to Hewitt’s face, “you can see him get distracted for a second. See how his head perks up?”

“Just like a dog who heard a dog whistle,” Jason said, seeing exactly what she meant. “Can you see anything on the video?”

Eerie shook her head. “It’s murky, but the overall feeling is definitely one of worry for a second, then he’s right back on his date like nothing happened.”

“Maybe he just remembered something he was supposed to do,” Jason suggested. 

“Yeah, or maybe this Untitled has been worming its way into their brains until they have a kind of super subconscious telepathy.” Eerie looked at Jason very seriously… for about two seconds. Then she started laughing. “Sorry, like I said, interesting, but not meaningful.”

Jason grunted in agreement. “So any idea what’s next?”

She kind of threw up her hands, standing up from her perch on the coffee table and collecting the sticky notes off the floor. “More data, I guess.” Sticking the apparently color coded notes in the arrangement she wanted on her growing murder wall, she added, “I think all this maybe needs to percolate in my head for a little while.”

“Wanna watch more parkour fail videos?”

“Sure.”


	16. Chapter 16

After breakfast (which required Jason to go down to the corner store for eggs, milk, and other necessities) and a few hours of YouTube, Eerie declared that she wanted to do some day time surveillance on the Hewitt brothers’ office. “You gotta car here?” Jason asked her while Roy and Kori did the dishes, making sickeningly cute noises as they did. 

“Nah,” she said, pulling on a dark leather jacket. “I’ll take the bus.”

Jason frowned. “Bludhaven’s not known for the safety of its public transportation.”

Eerie leveled an amused glare at him. “I think I can hold my own against some cat callers, Jay. But I wouldn’t mind the company if you want to come.”

Conveniently, there was a little coffee shop across the street from Hewitt and Hewitt. Jason watched Eerie pay for their drinks with her gaudy platinum card. “B still tracking you?” he asked when they sat down at a table with an appropriate view. 

“Undoubtedly. Though this won't tell him much that Damian hasn't told him already.”

Jason couldn't help the little sneer. “Why’d he send Demon Spawn out here with you in the first place?”

“Probably for the same reason I sent him back to Gotham,” Eerie responded with a steady gaze. 

_ To keep him from seeing me _ , Jason thought, then realized that Eerie probably knew he had seen Bruce recently. “How much do you know?” he asked, trying to sound casual and wondering if this was going to fuck up all of B’s carefully laid plans. 

“Enough to know that B is keeping this one real quiet,” Eerie answered, playing with her coffee cup. “When he and Talia are playing games, I try to stay out of it. I don't want to attract her attention any more than I already have.”

“Are you kidding?” Jason almost laughed. “You’re in regular contact with the brat. She probably already knows everything about you.”

Eerie shrugged. “Still, I have no desire to poke the bear.”

Yeah, Jason knew what that felt like. 

There was silence for a few minutes as Eerie sipped her drink and watched the office across the street. Jason tried to just sit there, be patient, but he was restless and fidgety next to Eerie. “So what do you tutor Little D in?” he asked. “I mean, his education was pretty thorough.”

Eerie snorted loudly. “His education was thorough in a very narrow sense. His training in the humanities was very spotty.” Eerie paused to take a drink, and Jason got the feeling she was trying to find the best way to say what she wanted to say to him in particular. “I think you know I was finishing a Masters degree when B scooped me up.” He nodded, so she went on. “My background is in rhetoric, studying how people persuade each other and themselves, but I read pretty widely in literature, philosophy, political science, and sociology too. I think what I’m trying to do is draw on all that to teach Damian a broader sense of empathy.” 

She looked at him like she was expecting a snarky remark, like she had resigned herself to his disdain already, so Jason kept his mouth shut and tried really, really hard not to look skeptical. It was apparently funny because Eerie huffed another laugh and said, “I know, right? But some days, I think it might be working. I mean, I was planning on having him read  _ Animal Liberation _ , but I think he’s started to figure that one out on his own, thanks to that cow.” She smiled into her cup. “Anyway, I just assigned him Mary Wollstonecraft’s  _ Vindication of the Rights of Women _ . We’re gonna work our way through all three waves of feminism.”

“Feminism, huh?” Jason rubbed the back of his head. “Don’t think you’ll have too much trouble with that one. He was raised by Talia.”

_ Shouldn’t have mentioned Talia, _ he thought suddenly, groaning inwardly at what threads Eerie might now be seeing.

But she didn’t say anything about that. “Yeah, I think he’ll take first- and second-wave pretty well, but when we get into third-wave with intersectionality and emotional labor, I’m expecting some heated debates.” She was grinning like she was looking forward to it.

“I don’t understand any of what you just said,” Jason admitted. 

“You do,” Eerie assured him. “You just don’t know those terms.” Her eyes went back out the window. “Well, what do you know?” she muttered low. Jason looked with her, easing his body into a posture of indifference as he let his gaze travel casually along the street. A tall black man was entering Hewitt and Hewitt. “That was Grisham,” Eerie said just as casually. “I think he’s Landraal’s right hand.”

“Any idea what he’s doing here?” Jason asked, continuing to survey the street.

“No idea. You feel up to trying to tail him?”

Jason heaved a sigh. “We can try. Don’t know how much luck we’ll have without him getting suspicious.”

Eerie shrugged. “I think it’s worth trying. I think Grisham takes care of business with people that Landraal doesn’t know.”

“You mean he’s going behind Landraal’s back?”

“No, more like Landraal doesn’t want to have names he could give up, so he has Grisham take care of certain things. Like their guy inside BPD.”

Jason raised his eyebrows a little. “Guess that makes some sense.”

They were quiet for a few moments, sipping coffee and waiting for Grisham to reemerge. “Jason,” Eerie said hesitantly, “I need to ask you something that I’m pretty sure you’ll find insulting.”

He smiled tightly. “That’s a great way to start,” he quipped, “but go ahead.”

“Does Red Hood have a history of targeting loved ones?”

Jason’s jaw and fist clenched. “You’re right,” he said once he was sure he wouldn’t yell. “That is pretty insulting.”

“And that’s all the answer I need,” Eerie said quickly, looking conciliatory. “It’s just that, last night, when he heard about your little stunt at the docks, Landraal was really concerned about his mistress for some reason.”

Jason didn't say anything in response, and Eerie respected the silence. He had  _ thought _ that maybe she understood him a little better than that, but apparently bat bias ran deep. She was just as indoctrinated as the rest of the family, no matter how she might criticize B.

He didn’t get a chance to sulk for long; Eerie hissed, “There’s Grisham,” and they were leaving the little cafe and strolling down the street. Grisham was walking at an easy pace, like a man with no real deadline, and Jason set a pace to roughly match his, hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket. He started when Eerie slipped her hand into the crook of her arm, but when he glared down at her, she was smiling up at him inanely.  _ What the hell is she-- oh, right _ . Jason could stumble moodily along the streets of Bludhaven, perhaps smoking a cigarette ( _ God I miss cigarettes _ ), without anyone giving him more than a passing glance, but with Eerie, stupidly happy couple would work better. So he did his best to return her smile with a grin of his own. Once again, his attempt at controlling his face was apparently funny; the corners of her eyes twitched a little in a genuine smile before she looked back to Grisham’s back moving in the crowd.

“So…” Jason started, feeling like he should say something.

“Hm?” Eerie hummed, still looking like a happy little love bird for all intents and purposes, though Jason noticed the flickering movement of her pupils that indicated she was searching the lines that no one else could see. 

“We gonna talk about the fact that you still don’t trust me?” he asked. “Or just leave that hanging?”

Her smile faltered a little, and Jason realized he’d made a mistake. Still, walking and talking was a normal thing for a couple to do, right?

“It wasn’t really a matter of trust,” Eerie said, glancing up at him, then looking back to their target. “I know that’s not really your MO now, but I couldn’t figure out what I was seeing, didn’t know if maybe at some point, or if some rumors had gotten started…” She trailed off with a shrug. 

Jason huffed a sigh, resentment fading slightly. “So you think we need to try to track down this mistress?” 

“Maybe. But if she’s the Untitled, we don’t want to tip her off.” Her fake smile faltered again. “I thought I was closer than this when I called y’all back in,” she admitted. “Looks like it might have been a bit premature.”

Jason shrugged as well as he could with her clinging to his arm. “More eyes for surveillance at least. And fewer snotty pre-teens.”

Eerie shrugged. “Damian’s better than Roy at reining in his hormones, though. At least, so far.”

Jason felt a wave of perverse delight wash over him. He looked down at her, dead serious. “Please, whatever happens, please promise me you'll tell me all about Damian’s first crush.”

“Do you want me to get my throat cut while I sleep?” Eerie asked with raised eyebrows, giving him one look before returning her eyes to Grisham. The mobster was picking up his pace, so Jason quickened his step too, dragging Eerie along. “You seeing anything good?”

Eerie gave her head a sharp shake. “Not much I can really make sense of right now. He doesn’t really like the Hewitts, but that doesn’t mean much. There’s some glimpses of folks who are probably other Morning Oysters, but right now, he’s mostly preoccupied with his girlfriend. I think they had a fight.” 

“Think he might know anything about this mistress?” Jason asked. He knew it was irrational, but he was feeling something of a vendetta against the mystery woman. 

“I think her name is Molly, and I don’t know. I don’t think I’m going to get anything useful right now unless he runs into someone he knows.”

He didn’t. Instead, he turned into a parking garage a few blocks away and drove away while Jason and Eerie watched from an alley across the street. She heaved a sigh of frustration, and Jason looked over to discover that she was clenching her jaw in a decidedly Batman-like fashion. 

 

+++++

 

The next couple of nights were more of the same: Arsenal and Starfire would cover Landraal and Anthony Hewitt while Red Hood went around causing trouble and Kairos watched for any kind of ripples that might reveal the bigger fish that she knew was in this pond. Her map of the Morning Oysters’ organization was getting more detailed, but she was seriously starting to wonder if she was on the wrong track: on the third night, she started visiting some of the Japes’ legitimate properties, peering in windows of office buildings at night guards and apartment complexes at sleeping tenants. There was no method to it, just blindly flailing around, and she only did it after both Landraal and Hewitt were away from her prying eyes.

Often Red Hood would watch her tethers as she did this surveillance, having already sent Starfire and Arsenal back in for the night. She was worried he was getting frustrated -- he frequently seemed restless and agitated when she would finally climb back up with nothing to report -- and she couldn’t really blame him: she’d called him to Bludhaven with a promise of leads and had so far been unable to deliver. All in all, her masterplan of showing Jason Todd how entirely competent she was at her job was falling to pieces. 

Things started to feel even more urgent when Hood came home sporting a bullet wound after a run-in with a local drug cartel. It was just a graze and Jason grumbled non-stop as Roy fussed over him, but Eerie’s stomach twisted into a knot as she watched. Red Hood couldn’t stay in Bludhaven for long without attracting some major hostility, especially if he kept shaking the hornet’s nest for her benefit. So Eerie amped up her daytime surveillance, coming in at night with the Outlaws and sleeping a couple of hours before heading out again shortly after dawn, before anyone else in the apartment was stirring. She got eyes on Emily Japes and James Hewitt at a lunch time meeting, found out who Grisham’s dirty cop was, and witnessed a quiet dinner shared between Anthony Hewitt and the uncle he was so fond of. But none of it got her any closer to the Untitled. 

Surveillance wasn’t working, so the next step was interrogation, but that had its own set of problems, since grabbing someone would likely alert the Untitled that something was amiss. They had to be sure to grab the  _ right  _ person, and that meant Eerie choosing the right person. She was weighing her options as she walked back from the bus stop in the twilight, about a week after the Outlaws had arrived, shuffling her feet toward their apartment building. Her eyes were feeling itchy and dry and she could feel the tension behind them that was an early-warning sign of an impending migraine if she didn’t slow down. But taking a night off… that would be like admitting that maybe Jason was right, that maybe she wasn’t fit to keep up with him. 

The creaky elevator took her to the top floor, and it took her too long to get her key to actually slide into the lock. Inside, Jason, Roy, and Kori were seated in a neat row on the couch, Roy’s computer in front of them. “Hey!” Roy called cheerfully. “There’s a chili dog for you in the fridge.”

“Thanks,” she said, trying to hide her lack of enthusiasm. Shrugging off her jacket and boots, Eerie listened to the sounds coming from the computer. “Star Wars?” she asked. 

“Kori’s never seen it,” Jason answered, standing up with a stretch. The wound on his ribs didn’t seem to be bothering him that much, but she was sure he was also good at hiding any pain he might be feeling.

“I cannot understand how this regime came into power if their foot soldiers are so inaccurate with their firearms!” the Tamaranean exclaimed.

“That question has haunted humans for decades,” Roy said sympathetically. “At least, those of us who reject Episodes I, II, and III as canon.”

“So, all intelligent people?” Eerie quipped with a small smile, heading toward the kitchen. 

Jason intercepted her there, leaning against the counter as she opened the fridge. “So, I appreciate that you’ve been ‘communicating’” -- Eerie could hear the scare quotes and winced slightly where he couldn’t see -- “but you could, ya know, let us in on your grand plans when you take off in the morning. One of us could go with you, watch your back…”

She’d answered Jason’s periodic texts throughout the day, but only with vague explanations that she was working. “I know,” she said, pulling the single styrofoam container out, “but one person is less conspicuous, and honestly, I spend a lot of time just walking and thinking.” Jason had crossed his arms over his chest, and she could clearly see how annoyed he was with her without needing the threads. She wanted to tell him to fuck off, but she also did not want an argument, not right now with her neck feeling so stiff, so instead she retreated to her room with her chili dog like a coward. 

Later that night, Kairos was hanging upside down at Landraal’s window again, trying to find something in the threads that maybe she hadn’t seen before despite the fact that it was getting harder to focus, but the only thing that seemed to be making sense was the line to Molly the mystery mistress. Molly, who no one else had apparently ever seen. Molly, whose thread ran out in a vaguely southeastern direction most nights, indicating where Landraal thought she would be.

They’d never figured out how her powers worked, exactly, apart from the fact that they were deeply entwined with her serotonin levels. She’d put up with a couple of cursory examinations at S.T.A.R. Labs at Bruce’s “request,” but she’d refused to move forward with more tests and she was fairly sure that Bruce had complied at the time only because it would mean that no one, not potential enemies or even potential friends, could understand and possibly exploit her skills. And Kairos had held back a few secrets from B, like how she could sometimes deliberately project (though nowhere near as intensely as when it was outside her control) or like how sometimes she’d get flashes of images, almost like a target was revisiting memories with the person in question. Sometimes those images included locations -- the places most closely associated with that person like the way she would get pet names. The problem was that there was almost always a backlash that happened, with Kairos often losing her lunch as a crushing migraine built beneath her skull. But right now, the migraine was coming anyway, so what did she have to lose except one partially digested subpar chili dog?

Kairos took three deep breaths, letting the exhales carry out longer than the inhales, and on the final exhale she focused everything on that line leading out to Mistress Molly, picturing herself flicking it like a bass string.

The snapback was immediate: a stately three-story house with covered windows and an unlit walk.

Then Kairos clambered back up her cord before she hurled. 

Red Hood was waiting at the top like usual, scowling at the skyline. She only caught the briefest glance of his silhouette before she firmly planted her head between her knees, just waiting for the queasiness to roll over her like a tidal wave. Hood was at her side in a second. “You alright?”

She gave him a thumbs up and swallowed thickly. “Nausea,” she rasped. “Give me a minute.” Her mouth was starting to salivate heavily and she vaguely wondered if she could pin this whole mess on whoever decided on chili dogs (definitely Jason) giving her food poisoning. For several long seconds everything was spinning and her stomach clenched then…

She swallowed again and felt better, slowly realizing that Hood was squeezing the webbing between her thumb and forefinger with gentle pressure. “Breathe in through your nose,” he said, “and out through your mouth.”

That was fundamentals, but having someone talk her through it made it easier to comply. After a minute of steady breathing, Jason asked, “You ready to stand up?”

“Yeah,” she croaked, accepting his help to get back upright. “I need to go home.”

“Sure thing. You good to take the rooftops? I can have Arsenal come pick us up…”

“Rooftops are fine.”

Red Hood took it nice and slow with her, double-checking her grips and footing like he would a baby cat or something. Somewhere underneath her exhaustion and disappointment about not finding anything more specific than “a house,” Kairos mused that she was just digging herself a deeper pit under the “Kairos: Too Fucked Up to Be a Superhero” tombstone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I spent a lot of time thinking about how different aliens would respond to human sci-fi movies. It's one of my favorite pastimes.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Awkward conversation is awkward. Fluffiness is fluffy.

“I really dig the new costume,” Jason quipped, watching Eerie stalk down the hall with a dark blue blanket over her head. “Real scary.”

“I’m glad you like it,” came Eerie’s muffled voice. She made her way slowly to the kitchen and lifted the cover just enough to reach her hands to pull a glass from the cabinet and fill it with water from the tap. At no point did she show her face.

After they’d gotten back to the apartment, Eerie had leaned heavily against the wall as she pulled off her mask and tugged down her cowl. She’d looked clammy and ill, and she seemed to want to look anywhere but at him. “We’re gonna have to interrogate,” she’d said, slurring just a little before swallowing. “Anthony Hewitt, I think. Easiest to pull without anyone noticing.”

“Okay, Eerie.” He’d started forward, but she’d moved backwards down the hall. “Just, are you okay?”

She’d mumbled something about chili dogs and sleep and disappeared into her room for nearly twelve hours, locking the door. (Jason could have picked the lock easily, but he could also hear her moving around and figured if she needed something, she’d call.) Her reappearance now, dressed like a half-assed ghost, wasn’t reassuring, and with a frown, he asked, “You alright?”

“I’m fine,” she answered, sounding both tired and waspish. Glass disappearing under the blanket, Eerie walked into the living room and sat on the couch, pulling her legs up and tucking the blanket around her body. Jason could hear her drinking the water. “Are you sure you’re alright?” he tried again.

“Yes.”

With no answers seeming to be forthcoming, Jason pulled out his phone and sent a text to Tim.  _ E’s acting weird. _

Tim replied less than a minute later.  _ You have to be more specific than that _ .

Jason snorted; that was an understatement, when your hobby regularly brought you in contact with sex pollen, fear toxin, mind control devices, and Joker gas.  _ She’s hiding under a blanket _ .

_ Oh that. She gets migraines when she’s been working too hard. Light and sound sensitivity. Probably been avoiding looking at people too. Hasn’t happened in a while, though, since she figured out how to pace herself. _

_ Anything I should do? _ Jason asked.

_ Just don’t let her go out tonight unless there’s an emergency and keep her away from screens. _

As he looked up from his phone, Eerie’s hand was tugging her laptop under the blanket. Jason snatched it away. “The Replacement says no screens for you.”

There was a moment’s silence, then Eerie said, “Tim’s one to talk.”

“Yeah, I know. Also, you’re grounded tonight.”

Eerie’s body shifted under the blanket like she was curling her body in on itself. “You’re not my dad,” she said half-heartedly.

Jason barked a laugh, then regretted it when he saw her flinch. “Does that line work on B?”

“Sometimes.”

They sat in silence for a while, Jason studying Eerie’s blanket-covered form and all the slight movements it made. It almost looked like she was rubbing her face into her knees in a slow rhythm. He wondered what had triggered this migraine, if it was something about the case or maybe working so soon after her injury. He leaned forward, body shifted toward her and elbows on his knees.

“You wanna go lay down or something?” he finally asked. 

“No.”

“You want some painkillers? I mean, we don’t keep a ton of stuff around because of Roy, but I could go out and get you something.”

“I already took something.”

Another silence. Eerie continued her small movements. Jason clasped his fingers together and looked out the window to the darkening sky. “I used to get migraines, a side effect from… from the Pit. They gave me triptans--”

“Tried that,” she said, shortly but not harshly. “Triptans trigger serotonin receptors and for some reason that seems to heighten the chance that I’ll start projecting.”

Jason’s brow furrowed. “But don’t you take an SSRI to keep from projecting?”

“Yeah. Best we’ve been able to figure out, my serotonin levels have a narrow normal range. Get too low or too high, and I start projecting.” Eerie stopped rubbing her face and Jason could see her shoulders hunch a little closer. “The effects are pretty much always the same. The people around me get anxious and angry.”

Jason was reaching a hand toward one of those blanket-covered shoulders, but Roy and Kori decided at just that precise moment to start fucking. Loudly. Like, break the bed against the wall loud. Like someone was killing a bobcat loud. Like everyone in the whole building probably hated them now loud.

He rolled his eyes; it wasn’t the first time he’d wondered if they had any sense of how thin the walls were in this apartment. Then Eerie made a small pained noise and Jason remembered that Tim had said she was sensitive to sound as well as light. Since interrupting his friends mid-coitus to ask them to keep it down and getting a starbolt to the face was not something he was really interested in trying, Jason came up with a Plan B. “You wanna go up to the ship and listen to the police scanner at a very low volume?” he offered.

“Yes please,” Eerie answered, sounding relieved. She stood but didn’t remove the blanket, instead walking slowly toward the window with the fire escape and starting to clamber up. Jason moved to stop her. “Here, you’re gonna hurt yourself,” he said, pulling her back. “Get on my back instead.”

So she did, without saying a word, and that worried Jason a little.  _ Must be feeling pretty bad _ , he thought, wondering again what had brought this on. It wasn’t his most graceful climb -- he was still contending with the trailing ends of the blanket while also having Eerie’s arms and legs wrapped around his body -- but they made it up safely. He didn’t let Eerie down until he was in the ship and could let her fall into one of the seats where she immediately curled back up into one solid lump. Plopping down in the pilot’s seat, cutting the power to Omni on, and setting the lights to their dimmest setting -- a muted glow that he hoped wouldn’t be too obtrusive -- Jason asked, “Want to listen in anywhere in particular?”

“Just… somewhere far away,” Eerie answered.

So Jason fiddled with the controls until they were getting a feed in Arabic, just loud enough to make out. Sounded like an insurgent radio comm, and not a happy one. “Do you speak Arabic?” he asked.

“Only Damian’s favorite obscenities.”

“Then we’ll see if you pick up on any of those.”

Jason wasn’t sure how long they sat there with the irregular stream of foreign language wafting over them, but it was pretty peaceful. He watched the sky grow darker out the front viewport and settled deeper into his seat, muscles relaxing as Eerie’s breathing grew more regular. Maybe she thought she only brought anxiety and anger to those around her, but when he was with her, he felt… more balanced, maybe? She was just so careful and methodical, working her way through what was done and said so precisely so as not to misinterpret or jump to conclusions, and the fact that someone would take the time to understand -- to understand him, in particular -- was… soothing. 

“Replacement said it’s been awhile since you got like this,” he said in a low tone. “He said you’ve gotten better at pacing yourself. It’s not like we’re in a ticking time bomb situation here, so why are you pushing yourself like this? I mean, you could have said if you needed a night off.”

He heard the sound of Eerie swallowing even under the blanket. “Just… trying to find this thing before it can hurt someone else,” she offered, but she sounded tentative, and Jason knew a half truth when he heard one.

“C’mon,” he cajoled, “aren’t you going to give me an honest answer?” When she didn’t say anything more, he tried sweetening the deal. “I’ll trade you: one honest answer for another.”

Eerie snorted. 

“Alright, fine, I’ll even go first,” Jason said. “Ask away.”

He waited while Eerie apparently thought this over -- it was so hard to know what was going on under that blanket. After a long minute, the whole blanket lump shifted in the seat until it was facing Jason and Eerie rearranged her cover so that it formed a hood around her face, blocking the light from Omni’s displays. The deep shadows made her expression hard to read, but Jason could see that her eyes stayed fixed on the floor. “Would you even consider returning to Gotham long-term?” she asked quietly. 

Jason started to give in to his gut response -- a loud “hell no!” -- then remembered that this was supposed to be a trade, and any answer she gave him would be thoughtfully considered before she even uttered a syllable. So he counted to 30 and thoughtfully considered. “Would I go back to Gotham? Sure,” he said finally. “Gotham is home. Could I go back to being under B’s scrutiny?” He shrugged. “I seriously doubt it.”

Eerie nodded without ever looking up at him; she seemed to be making a point to not even look at his feet. “I wanted to show you I’m not too fucked up to do my job,” she said, answering his question, then her lips twisted, “but I guess I fucked that up too.”

_ Oh shit _ , thought Jason.  _ Oh boy, Jay, here we go. _

“What I said,” he started, “I was completely in the wrong. I was panicking--” Eerie’s face seemed to fall. “Not because of you!” Jason backtracked immediately. “You projecting wasn’t the problem. I was panicking because I was worried about what would happen to you if you stayed with us.” He swallowed.  _ Honesty, Jay _ , he thought.  _ Do it now or you’ll regret it forever _ . “And what would happen to me. I was worried about what I felt for you. What I feel for you.”

His heart was pounding like the first time he’d had a gun pointed at him, but he forced himself to watch her face. Her eyes darted up to him, then quickly away, then back up, then away, like she was had to look at the sun, but couldn’t only take so much at once. “Jay?” she asked finally.

Forcing down the lump in his throat, Jason replied hoarsely. “Yeah?”

“Can I kiss you?”

“Uh, yeah.”

And then his face was sheltered inside that hood and her lips were on his, soft and light this time. He gathered her into his arms until she was sitting in his lap, and when she licked gently at his mouth, he let her in. 

It was  _ so  _ good.

When she finally broke away, they were both breathing a little harder. Eerie pressed her forehead into his neck and he pulled the blanket closer around her face from where it had pushed back a little. “That was okay?” she asked, sounding a little timid. 

A huge grin that she couldn’t see split Jason’s face. “Well, are you having a panic attack?”

“No.”

“Any bullet wounds?”

“No.” 

“So just the migraine?”

“The painkiller started to kick in a little while ago. It’s not so bad now.”

He chuckled softly. “Well, if that’s the case, then, yeah, I think that was okay.”

She hummed. “Me too.” And this time when she curled in on herself, she was curling into him too. 

Eerie dozed off, but Jason didn’t mind; maybe it was the painkiller she’d taken, or maybe, like him, she was feeling more relaxed now that all this was out in the open. He started to doze a little too, feeling warm and heavy with the weight of her in his arms, despite the fact that one of his feet was getting numb. The bubble of quiet and warm was popped, though, by Roy’s voice coming over Omni’s speakers. “Hood?” he called. “This is Arsenal. Did you and K go out without us?”

Jason shifted slowly toward the console until he could thumb the mic on. “Nah, we’re upstairs. Kairos needed a break from the noise.”

“Oh,” Roy said, and Jason could just picture him grinning apologetically and rubbing the back of his neck. “Well, it’s quiet down here now.”

“Right, we’ll come down, then.” Jason thumbed the mic back off and peeled Eerie’s blanket up just a little to look at her face. It didn’t wake her, which was probably a good thing, but he wasn’t going to be able to manage both her and the blanket comfortably if she was dead weight. “Hey Eerie,” he said, shaking her shoulder lightly, “I need you to wake up a little so I can put you in bed.” She groaned a little, and Jason tried again. “C’mon Eerie, you need to sleep off whatever it is you took for the headache, and you’ll be a lot more comfortable in bed.”

She sighed heavily and said, “M’kay.”

It took a minute, but he managed to get her on his back again and down into the apartment. Kori was on the couch when he climbed through the window. “Is Eerie unwell?” she asked immediately, standing to help Jason with his burden. 

He waved her off and headed for Eerie’s room. “She’s got a migraine.” Kori followed him and watched as he sat on the edge of the bed and coaxed Eerie’s limbs loose. The woman immediately curled up under the blanket, and Jason leaned over to make sure that her eyes were covered, but her mouth and nose were exposed to the air; he’d had one too many bad nights of waking up with the covers suffocating him. Then he shooed Kori out and cut off the light, shutting the door behind him.

Roy was leaning against the kitchen counter with a soda in hand. “Migraine, you said?” he asked. “That happen a lot?”

Jason shrugged. “Replacement said it happens sometimes.” He headed to the fridge to find a soda of his own. “She said she took something; I’m guessing a dose of morphine considering how out of it she is now.” He paused as he popped the top of a can of Zesti. “Or that might just be the aftereffects of the migraine. In any case, she’s not going out tonight.”

“So, what’s the plan, then?” Roy asked. 

Jason tapped his fingers on the countertop. “Eerie said something about pulling Anthony Hewitt for interrogation, so we should keep up surveillance on him,” he said after a moment’s thought. “Might as well do a little patrol. Check up on the drug dealers and the working girls and boys, usual Red Hood stuff.”

“Aw, Jaybird,” Roy teased, “you feeling a little lonely? Looking to buy some company?”

Jason glowered at him, but it only last a second. “You know some of my best informers are prostitutes, Roy.”

“Jason has no need of other company,” Kori said, sounding matter of fact, and Jason felt himself growing warm as Roy looked between his girlfriend and his friend before his grin grew larger. “Something you want to tell us about, Jaybird?”

It was going to be a long night.


	18. Chapter 18

When Eerie woke up, she took a moment to luxuriate in the lack of pounding in her skull. Then she took a moment to let the memory of last night wash back over her, dulled as it was by pain and drugs. The kiss, sure, the kiss had been great, but also the warm, dark comfort of being held by Jason.

Jason fucking Todd.

She moaned slightly as she rolled over, working hard to untangle herself from the blankets and pressing the palms of her hands against her eyes. Dick had texted a couple of times asking for updates and giving her snotty replies when she told him about where she was in the case. Still, he was always good for a reality check when she thought she needed one. 

_ We kissed last night, _ she tapped out on her phone.  _ And I liked it, and I’m pretty sure he liked it, and I can’t tell if I’ve gone completely insane. _

At first, Dick just sent an emoji of a laughing-until-crying face.

_ Seriously _ , she sent back frantically.  _ I can’t tell. I am on the brink of a relationship with a man on Interpol’s most wanted list. A man who has killed people and who attempted to kill people I care about. What is wrong with me? _

Dick’s answer came in a series of short messages:

 

_ OK, 1. take a deep breath _

_ 2\. it’s okay to have feelings. Just like ur always telling the rest of us _

_ 3\. tell me exactly what it is about J you find so attractive _

_ And if u don’t include his ass on that list, I’ll know ur a liar _

 

Eerie chewed on the inside of her cheek, thinking. It took several minutes for her to complete her next text.

_ J *does* things. He commits entirely. He has no problem with anger. He uses it. He focuses intently. He listens. He wants to do whatever he can to fix whatever he can, even if it means damning himself in the process. And I know there are laws, and I know there are moral codes, and I know he’s crossed lines, but there are times when I feel like I’m damning myself every time I do B’s bidding, because I gave up on democracy working the second I took his offer. _

She wasn’t sure it would make sense to Dick -- she wasn’t quite sure it made sense to her -- but his reply allayed her fears:  _ U spend so much time second guessing urself that it feels good 2 b around someone who’s sure. _

_ Yeah, I guess so,  _ she sent back.

_ People change _ , Dick wrote.  _ J isn’t the same person he was when he came back. The person ur describing is worth loving, even if he is flawed. _

A whole new wave of panic washed over her.  _ I didn’t say the L word!  _ she tapped out frantically.

_ Must have been me projecting then _ , came the reply.

Ah. Dick wanted to love his brother. Just like Bruce, he didn’t want to feel guilty for  _ still _ caring about Jason. Eerie went for a light-hearted reply.  _ Just like you were with his ass? _

_ U know me. I’m an ass man. _

Well, if Dick was joking, he wasn’t planning on sweeping her away to a padded cell.

It was just after 10 when she emerged from her room, slipping down the hall to the kitchen. Jay was dead asleep on the couch, and Eerie set the kettle as quietly as she could, her stomach not quite feeling ready for the acidity of coffee this morning. Once she had brewed a cup of masala chai, though, she couldn’t keep herself from perching on the coffee table to watch over Jay. Honestly, she wanted to climb into the nest of blankets he’d made for himself on the couch, but that seemed a little forward, so she compromised with being close. 

Someone had scrawled a few names on sticky notes and attached them to her wall, making a couple little pyramids under a note that said “MO Prostitutes” in big letters. A couple other names were marked as “pimps,” so Eerie supposed that the Outlaws had spent some time working Red Hood’s usual angles the previous night. It wasn’t a bad strategy -- if Hewitt was their target, hiring a working girl or boy to lure him into a back alley with the promise of sex was as good a plan as any. One of Roy’s tiny data cards was sitting on her laptop and she slipped it in an appropriate slot to see what Arsenal’s cameras had caught the night before -- more footage of Hewitt at Grinder, then going home with another younger man. 

So Eerie popped in some earbuds, turned on some raucous riot grrrl, and started planning the kidnapping of Anthony Hewitt.

She was lost in the world of mapping out Hewitt’s daily routine when a hand on her knee startled her. Looking up and jerking the headphones out of her ears, she saw Jason was watching her. “Bratmobile?” he asked in the slightly hoarse way of the recently awake.

“Yeah,” she answered, pausing the music. God, his eyes were so pretty. “Sorry if it was too loud.”

He ignored the apology. “How you feeling today?” 

She shrugged with a shy smile. “Back to normal.”

He smiled too. “Any coffee?”

“Not yet. I’ll make some real quick.”

“No, s’alright,” he interjected, stretching legs out from under his covers. “I’ll get it.”

Eerie turned her face back to her laptop, but her heartrate was definitely increasing as she wondered what the hell she was supposed to do now. Luckily, after getting the coffee started, Jason saved her from agonizing too long by leaning over the bar between the living room and kitchen and saying, “Look, normally, I wouldn’t be so blunt, but I’d rather have this conversation before Roy and Kori get up. Are you okay with what happened last night?”

“I…” Eerie stammered quickly, “yeah, I’m really okay with it.” She swallowed nervously. “Are you?”

“Are you fucking kidding?” he said, grinning wide. “Yeah, I’m good with it. You, uh, you wanna keep me company in here while I scramble us some eggs?”

Eerie didn’t need to be asked twice, and as soon as she was within arms reach, Jason had set her on a countertop and was kissing her lightly. Her stomach flipped as she settled arms around his neck and let her tongue move against his.

Some time later, Jay stepped back, though he left his hands where they’d been at her waist. He looked a little sheepish as he said, “I don’t want you think that I’m, like, trying to hide you or anything, but Roy is going to be a fucking nutcase about this, so if we could maybe keep in on the DL?”

“Oh God yes,” Eerie said quickly, feeling herself blush at even the thought of Roy’s suggestive comments happening nonstop.

“Okay.” Jason gave her another quick peck. “Eggs.”

Eerie sat there, kicking her legs as he began pulling things out of the fridge and cabinets. “How’d things go last night?” she asked.

Jason shrugged. “Roy kept on Hewitt and me and Kori checked in on Landraal, but he was where he usually is, so we went out to Fennel Street. Oysters keep a prostitution ring going there.”

“I saw the names.”

“Yeah, I did some asking around. Didn’t take much prodding; somehow these people got the idea that Red Hood is friend to the little man under the big bad mob boss’s heel.” 

Eerie shrugged. “You ran a pretty tight ship back in the day.”

Jason snorted and she could see his shoulders tense a little as he cracked eggs into a skillet. “You mean when I wasn’t murdering people?”

Her face fell. “That’s not what I meant.” She watched the thread to Bruce twist and knot up, then, as if Jay was deliberately pushing aside his anger, smooth out into something less snarled. 

“Yeah, I know.” He turned back around to her, face calm even if the smile was a little forced. “We got bread for toast?”

“Uh, on top of the fridge,” she said, pointing. Silence stretched out between them as Jay put bread in the toaster and scrambled the eggs. Feeling like she needed to somehow apologize for bringing up the past, Eerie slid off the counter and put an arm around his waist as he worked. The touch seemed to relax whatever tension he still had in his shoulders, and Eerie filed that away for further consideration. Later. When she didn’t have Jason within kissing distance. 

So maybe the eggs  _ almost _ burned, but it was worth it.

With plates heaped with breakfast food and a mug of coffee for Jason, they settled onto the couch, shoulders and knees touching. “I’ve been working on a kidnapping plan,” Eerie said between bites. 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She shoved another large bit of eggs in and chewed quickly. “So, I’m thinking that Hewitt will be the easiest one to take since he spends so much time traveling between skeezy clubs and doesn’t have anyone waiting for him at home.”

“Makes sense. You think he’ll be able to give us what we need?”

Eerie sighed. “He’s as good a bet as we have right now. And if he can’t, that’ll at least tell me that I’ve royally fucked all this up and need to start back at the beginning.”

Jason nodded. “Not a total loss.”

“The thing is that I’m worried that us grabbing him might alert the Untitled, especially since we don’t really know much about this whole angry-villager-attack system, which is another reason to try to make this look as, uh, non-Untitled related as possible.”

Jason raised one eyebrow slightly. “O-kay,” he said slowly.

“What I’m trying to say,” she went on, feeling a little flustered, “is that we need to make it look like Hewitt just went on a bender. Like, we need to convince Hewitt that he went on a bender.”

His brow furrowed. “You want to make a man forget that we interrogated him and instead implant memories of a crazy drug-and-sex weekend?”

“Yes. That way he’s less likely to go to the Untitled and be like, ‘Hey, some people in masks picked me up and asked funny questions.’”

Jason didn’t reply until after he’d finished the piece of toast in his hand and had a few sips of coffee. “I think we can do that.”

“Yeah?” Eerie had started to worry he was going to tell her she was being stupid.

He nodded. “If we can get him to forget everything, but leave all the signs of a bender, then he’ll just have to assume that’s what happened. I mean, if he’s the kind to do that…”

“He is,” Eerie assured him. “Emily Japes brought it up in a meeting with his brother.”

“Alright, then.” He forked the last bite of food into his mouth and set his plate down. “Let’s plan a kidnapping.”

They were reviewing the footage of Hewitt’s various liaisons to determine which of the working boys Jason had befriended the night before would be most likely to catch their target’s eye when Kori emerged from her room in her favorite purple bikini. She smiled warmly at them before climbing out the window to stand on the fire escape and stretch in the sun. “Roy,” Jason called, “your girlfriend is exhibiting herself for the neighbors.”

There was a thunk, then some muffled cursing, before Roy, hair sticking every direction, stumbled out into the living room and over to the fire escape. “C’mon, babe,” he said to Kori, “we talked about this. You gotta turn on your holo when you stand outside.”

Kori gave a distracted hum. “Isn’t the sun wonderful today?”

Eerie eyed the two of them in her periphery, but she was a little concerned. Roy was worried, anxious, obviously very attached to Kori, and scared she didn’t feel the same. And, Eerie was sad to note, she didn’t. She liked Roy, quite a bit more than most other people, but it was like there was a film over the line that kept it from attaching to her securely. Like any second, it might just slide off her.

Eerie really didn’t want to see that happen.

After getting Kori’s holo turned on so she presented a less alien face to the world, Roy turned to them, then suddenly seemed to register their close proximity. “Hey you guys,” he said, grinning idiotically. “Whatcha doin’?”

“Deciding on bait for our honey pot,” Jason said without bothering to look up. 

“Sure,” said Roy, drawing out the word and bordering on leering now. 

“We’re kidnapping Hewitt tomorrow night,” Eerie said decisively, also doing her best to ignore all the waves of self-satisfaction Roy was sending Jason’s way. It didn’t look like keeping things on the DL was going to work. “So before then, we need to arrange the services of a honey pot, identify an appropriate place for an interrogation, and get our hands on whatever concoction of drugs it is that Jay is going to give him to make him forget he was interrogated.”

“We’ll need cash,” Jason added, off-handedly. “For the hooker and the drugs.”

“We might also consider back-up for phase 2,” Eerie said tentatively.

Jay and Roy both locked onto her. “What do you mean?” Jay asked.

“Well,” Eerie started, “it’s one thing if everyone in a small town goes a little crazy, but in Bludhaven, a bunch of top-level crime lords plus whoever else getting their panties in a wad because someone killed their favorite big bad? That’s going to get really ugly.”

Jason’s eyes narrowed. “So you want to call in B.” It was clearly an accusation.

“Actually, I was thinking about asking Tim if the Titans would be available.” She shrugged. “It’s a job where super powers could come in handy.”

Jason looked like he was about to sulk, but Roy cut in. “She’s right, Jaybird. I’d hate to see the city burn, and we’re gonna have to get outta Dodge as soon as we’re done to try to mitigate the damage anyway.”

Jay clenched his jaw, then heaved a sigh. “Yeah, alright, give him a call,” he said finally. “But you make sure he knows that none of them get to interfere. They are just here for clean-up.”

Eerie nodded with her own little sigh of relief, and when Roy was preoccupied with getting Kori off the fire escape, she reached over and squeezed Jason’s hand. He squeezed hers back.

By the time the sun was setting, they had picked two possible honey pots, identified three vacant buildings as possible interrogation rooms, and cobbled together a few thousand dollars in cash without raising too many eyebrows. Figuring that Tim was guaranteed to be awake at this hour, Eerie made the call. “Hey, Tim, it’s Eerie.”

“Hey, E.” Tim sounded not utterly exhausted for once. That was a good sign. “You feeling better?”

“Yeah,” she said, feeling sheepish. “Sorry Jay bothered you about that.”

“No worries. I’d actually forgotten about your ghost routine until he asked about it. Any idea what set it of this time?” Of course he was curious; Tim was the one who had helped her track her serotonin levels during her first few months of training.

“Just… trying to get this case finished up,” she said. It was only a half-lie. “Which is why I’m calling.”

“Oh?”

“You’ve seen the reports from Cherbourg, right?” There was no real reason why Tim would have seen them, but he tended to obsessively check everything new that came into their intel system.

“Yeah, brainwashed civilians, right?” 

“As near as we can tell. We’re about to take out another one of these Untitled, but we’d rather not see Bludhaven collapse on itself afterward. Any chance the Titans could come in to do clean-up?”

“When do you need us?”

“Saturday or Sunday.”

“Just send me a time and location.”

Eerie didn’t bother trying to hide her sound of relief. “Thanks, Tim. I owe you one.”

“Well, you know me.” She could hear the grin in his voice. “I like being owed favors.” There was a pause, then he said, “So, I talked to Dick a few days ago, and he had some pretty interesting stories…”

Eerie’s teeth jammed together and she bit out, “I swear to God, that asshole has no sense of privacy.”

Tim was laughing. “You’re just figuring that out now?”

“I don’t know, I just keep thinking that one day he’ll stop being a gossipy teenager.”

“But then he wouldn’t be the Dick we know and love.” Another pause. “So, things are good, though? I mean, not to pry or whatever, but you’re, like, okay?”

God, that kid was sweet. “Yeah, I’m okay. Things are, well, good.”

“Good as in not bad, or good as in  _ good _ ?”

Okay, that kid was also nosy, but it balanced out. “Good as in good,” she admitted, then hesitated before asking, “Are you cool with this?”

“Yeah, no worries!” And Eerie remembered when Hood had first approached her -- almost two months ago, wow -- and she’d seen his thread to Tim, smooth and calm and maybe even a little affectionate. 

“Alright,” she said, wanting to move away from this topic. “Well, as soon as our plans are settled here, I’ll let you know.”

“K. See you in a couple of days.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So fun fact: While Jason is the Robin I crush on the hardest, Tim is the Robin I identify with the most.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And finally, some sexy times...

Arsenal and Starfire set up their typical surveillance of Hewitt while Red Hood and Kairos headed to Fennel Street. As Hood watched his partner out of his periphery, he told himself it was because she'd seemed so unsteady on her feet last time she was out. Not that she was having any trouble at the moment.  _ You make out with someone a little bit, and suddenly you can't stop looking at them _ , he berated himself, deliberately dragging his eyes away as they crossed the roof of some gaudy-ass office building.  _ Gotta get your shit together, Jay _ . 

They came up short on a building at the corner of Fennel and Loudon, where the Morning Oyster prostitutes tended to collect. About half a dozen women and a couple of men lounged around, smoking cigarettes and chatting in the dark, waiting for customers. Hood adjusted the lenses in his helmet until he was zoomed in on their faces. “Matt’s the one of the left,” he told Kairos as she crouched next to him to get a good look.

“Yeah, I think he’ll do,” she answered. They’d decided that Hewitt seemed to have a thing for short-ish blondes of both genders, and Matt fit the description pretty well. 

“You gonna wait up here?” he asked, glancing over at her.  _ Keep your hands to yourself, Jay. You’re in the field. _

It got so much harder when she smiled and grabbed a handful of his jacket. “Yeah, I’ll listen in.” He looked down to see the tiny mic she’d pressed to his collar.

He couldn’t think of anything to say that wasn’t entirely inappropriate in the situation, so he grunted and took off over the edge to slide down a drain pipe. The collected sex workers greeted him casually when he emerged from the shadows of the alley. One of the things he liked best about the working girls and boys -- they’d seen too much to get fazed by him. Matt was lighting up another cigarette as Hood approached him -- God, he missed cigarettes -- and gave a little wave before saying, “Hey, Hood! What brings you down here again?”

The kid was barely legal and skinny as a rail, but he didn’t have any track marks yet, so he just might make it to thirty. Maybe. The thought made Hood scowl beneath his helmet. “Gotta little proposition for ya,” he said, working to keep his voice light. 

Matt grinned lasciviously. “Sure thing, but I hope you got somewhere to go other than this alley. Pablo’ll skin me if he catches me with a mask.”

He heard Kairos snort a laugh in his comms as he clarified. “Nah, man, not that kinda proposition.” He gestured for the younger man to follow him a little farther away from the group. “It’s a weekend-long job,” Hood went on.

“Aw, man, I don’t usually do overnights, ya know?” Matt scratched at his arm and looked at the ground. “They, uh, they don’t usually go so well.”

“It’d be a weekend job watching an unconscious man,” Hood explained. “You’d go to a bar, pick him up, turn him over to me, then stay in his apartment for a night or two until he wakes up and explain that you two had a crazy few days together and you just wanted to make sure he didn’t die before you left.”

“Aw, fuck, man…” Matt seemed to be thinking it over.

“He’s scared of his pimp,” Kairos said in his ear.

“Look, if you’re worried about Pablo,” Hood cajoled, taking her hint, “don’t be. I’ll take care of him.”

Matt raised an eyebrow. “You gonna be around to keep taking care of him?”

_ Well shit _ . That was the hang-up. No way Hood was making promises of protection he knew he couldn’t keep.

“Tell him we can set him up with a job in Gotham. A real job, on the up-and-up,” Kairos said. He wanted to ask her if she was serious, to tell her not to jerk the kid around like that, but she seemed to sense the reason for his hesitation and explained, “It’s a Batman Inc. initiative, a promise I can deliver on.”

“Alright,” Hood said to Matt, “you gotta point. What if I could set you up with a job in Gotham?”

The kid was skeptical. “What kind of job?” he asked guardedly.

Hood shrugged. “Not turning tricks. Something legal. At least minimum wage.”

“A halfway house until he gets on his feet,” Kairos added.

“A halfway house until you get a place of your own,” Hood echoed.

Matt considered it. “Any chance of health insurance?” he asked slowly.

“Definitely,” Kairos and Hood said at the same time.

“And you’ll have my back if anything happens?”

“Yes.”

Matt took a deep breath. “Alright, I’m in. What’s the plan?”

“Tomorrow night, a woman in a car will come pick you up,” Hood said. “She’ll take you to a rendezvous point. I’ll give you the details then.”

Matt nodded, a grin spreading across his face. “Damn, I hope I have kids now just so I can tell them all about how the Red fucking Hood saved me from a life on the streets.”

“Aw,” Kairos drawled in his ear, “he’s gonna tell his kids about you.”

The next item of their pre-kidnapping to-do list was to find a place to take Hewitt for questioning. The first location was a bust -- too many squatters in the area -- but the second one, a burned out apartment building, looked like it could work. “Was this N’s old building?” Hood asked as they negotiated the collapsed beams on the top floor. 

“No, that building was torn down years ago,” Kairos explained, eyeing the sightlines out the open windows. “Apparently brutal apartment fires are a common occurrence in Bludhaven.”

Hood grunted in agreement. Bludhaven was a shit hole. 

Kairos eventually said, “I think this one’ll do. Not too much in the way of ambient noise for Hewitt to pinpoint his location.” She looked over to him. “What do you think?”

Hood shrugged. “It’s structurally sound enough. No sign of anyone living here recently. And hopefully we’ll only be here a few hours, tops.” He felt a familiar pull of anxiety in his gut, one that had been hanging around ever since Eerie had first uttered the word “interrogation.” Tugging off his helmet to leave just the domino in place, he asked, “Have you actually interrogated someone before? ‘Cuz it’s usually not pretty--”

“The first job B took me out on was an interrogation,” Kairos interrupted him. “Granted, it was a pipsqueak that scared easy, but I’m no stranger to questionable intelligence-gathering practices.” She suddenly frowned. “But we don’t have to do this, if you don’t want to,” she added quickly. “I can figure something else out--”

“No,” Hood countered quickly. “I got no problem with roughing up some rich pretty boy, I just… I don’t want you to feel like you have to do this just to, I dunno, make me happy?” It sounded so stupid when he said it like that. “Or like you have to suddenly get all hard just because you’re working with me,” he tried to clarify.  _ God, Jay, could you get more fucking condescending? _

He felt even stupider as he watched her mouth twist into a deeper frown as she worried the inside of her cheek with her teeth. She looked at the ground when she said, “I’ve pushed my abilities as far as they’ll go with our current methods.” Her voice was level and professional. “We have to either change our tactics or admit defeat here. And if you’re worried about me crossing my own ideological line in the sand, that happened the day I put on a mask.” She looked at him, white-out lenses making her hard to read, but her face looked free of lines. “Now, I just want to finish this job like a fucking boss.”

Heat rushed through Red Hood’s body. _So fucking hot._ _Hands to yourself, Jay_. He couldn’t stop his grin, though. “Alright, then,” he said, pulling his helmet back on. “Let’s be the heroes Bludhaven will hopefully never know they needed.”

Item number three was to buy drugs of several varieties, both to prepare a concoction to give Hewitt short-term amnesia and to plant around his apartment for that “crazy weekend” look. Red Hood briefly considered stashing them in their now-claimed interrogation space, then decided that Roy could probably handle himself. 

He rejoined Kairos on top of another office building while she seemed to be surveying the southeastern quadrant of the city. “Starfire said Hewitt turned in early,” he reported to her. “She and Arsenal were headed back to base.”

Kairos hummed in acknowledgement but didn’t stop whatever it was she was doing.

“You got something else for us to do tonight?” Red Hood asked.

She shrugged, finally turning to face him. “You up for a little run, just scout things out a little?”

“Something come up?” 

With a grimace, she said, “Just a nagging feeling, ya know?”

Hood snorted. “Yeah, I know. Alright, lead the way.”

If he was following her, then he had to keep his eyes on her, right?

They made their way out to the edge of town, then worked back north. Occasionally, Kairos would stop at a particularly good vantage point and give the panorama a steady sweep before darting off again. “You looking for anything in particular?” Hood asked at their third stop. 

“I’m pretty sure mystery mistress Molly lives out in this part of town,” Kairos answered without looking his way. “Just wanted to cover all my bases before we go through with this.”

Hood didn’t ask how she knew that -- honestly, he still didn’t really understand how her powers worked -- but he was familiar with the need to look for something that may or may not be there, to make sure there wasn’t some giant neon sign that you’d missed because you were too busy punching people. Eventually, though, they were back in downtown with nothing to show. Kairos sighed heavily, and Hood wondered if she was going to apologize again for having nothing to show. In an attempt to head that off, he nudged her shoulder with his own and said, “You wanna get something to eat that isn’t a chili dog?”

“Any chance on a vegetarian option?” she asked with a little smile.

“Fine, but I’m getting the meatiest thing on the menu.”

 

+++++

 

They’d found an all-night Indian take-out place and Kairos had watched Red Hood march in, pretty as you please, and order. Despite the others waiting and Hood being on his best behavior, the night manager had handed over the plastic bag full of food and ushered the masked man out the door as quickly as possible. Kairos knew that Nightwing and Red Robin regularly pulled stunts like this in Gotham, but she’d never been game. Besides, part of the reason she’d survived in this business for as long as she had was that hardly anyone knew she was a player at all. 

With Hood cradling the take-out, they made a bee-line to the apartment, locking and covering the windows behind them. Jason tugged off his helmet and said, “I’mma jump in the shower first, ‘kay?” He drug his backpack from behind the couch as Eerie started pulling off her hood, mask, and cowl, walking down the hall to toss the gear on the bed. She could hear vague noises from Roy and Kori’s room, maybe another movie, but it was enough to know that they were occupied for the moment as her guts started bubbling in a happy way at the thought of doing something so mundane as sitting on a couch and eating take-out with Jason.  _ Easy, girl _ , she thought,  _ let’s not get too carried away here. I mean, it’s not like you have any idea what you’re doing _ . 

She stored her mask, cowl, and gloves -- with all their delicate electronics -- in a special case, then continued stripping off the exterior bits of her costume until she was wearing a sports bra and leggings. Her nose wrinkled; she could really use a shower too, and she didn’t want to put on anything clean-ish until after, so she tugged a previous worn tank top over her head…

And realized that her hands were shaking.

_ Okay, okay, Eerie, everything’s good. _ She tried to talk herself down from the impending wave of anxiety before it could properly hit, sitting on the edge of the bed and pressing her palms into her thighs. Back when she’d first joined up with the bats, Bruce had insisted she do some counseling sessions with Martian Manhunter. She had balked, but hadn’t regretted it in retrospect. One of the strategies he encouraged her to use was to have a conversation, in which the other interlocutor was someone she anticipated getting good advice from, and she’d ended up creating this idealized, older version of herself just for these occasions.

_ Why are your hands shaking? _ older Eerie asked, tone level and gaze kindly.

_ I think I’m nervous about being around Jay _ , present Eerie answered.

_ Has he given you a reason to be nervous, beyond the typical new-romance jitters?  _ Older Eerie crossed her legs and watched present Eerie over a cup of tea. Older Eerie was very poised.

_ I’m not nervous about him _ , present Eerie amended,  _ I’m nervous about me, what I’ll do _ .

_ And what are you worried you’ll do? _

_ I dunno. _ Present Eerie rolled her eyes at herself.  _ Say the wrong thing. Show him that I’m not that interesting. Scare him away _ . 

_ Tt. That’s all typical for a new romance. _ Older Eerie definitely had many years around Damian.  _ Maybe a better question is: What do you want to do? _

A rush of heat spread through her body.  _ Uh, that’s a loaded question _ .

_ And maybe that’s why you are so uncomfortable right now _ . Yep, older Eerie had definitely learned that glare from Damian.  _ Do you want to have sex with Jason? _

_ Yes. _ It was a no-brainer. She hadn’t felt desire this intense since, well, before her bat days.

Older Eerie arched an eyebrow.  _ Tonight? _ she asked with a little smirk.

_ Wouldn’t say no _ , present Eerie said with a shrug.  _ But-- _

Older Eerie cut her off.  _ We could continue this back-and-forth, but that’s a waste of time and Jason has already cut off the water in the shower. You’re scared because doing this feels like doing some permanent, something you can never ever take back, something that will affect the outcome of your entire life, and you don’t want to fuck up. _

Present Eerie clenched her jaw a little, then hung her head.  _ Yeah _ .

_ And what do we do when we realize that we’re hung up on the possibility of making a mistake with our lives? _ Older Eerie could be a condescending bitch at times too; Eerie wasn’t sure where she got that from.

_ We remind ourselves that nobody exists on purpose, nobody belongs anywhere, and everyone is going to die _ . She’d had to first explain the entirety of  _ Rick and Morty _ to J’onn before he’d understood why she would take something so depressing as a mantra to calm herself, but it worked like a charm. Eerie felt herself straighten.  _ I’m an adult, he’s an adult, and if I want to have sex with him and he’s into it, then, fuck it, nobody’s business. _

Older Eerie smiled at her.  _ Atta girl. _

By the time Jason emerged from the bathroom, Eerie was on the couch with a spread of take-out containers in front of her. “I’m pretty sure there’s an entire baby lamb in your meal,” she said, eyeing the lamb curry he’d ordered. “I’m not a strict vegetarian by any means, but I think you should at least think about how cute the animal you’re about to eat was.”

Jason grinned, plopping down beside her, smelling like the lemongrass soap she favored. “Do you think it had soft wool and floppy little ears?” he asked.

“Definitely. It probably also had one spot over its eye. So adorable.”

“Well, I’ll be sure to keep that in mind as I savor its deliciousness.” Jason paused to stuff his mouth, exaggerating a moan.

In short order, the food was gone, and Eerie’s limbs had the heavy feeling she associated with being well-fed. Her skin, on the other hand, was hypersensitive to the minute brushes of Jason’s hand, his knee, his hip against hers. She looked up at him, found him looking down at her, and --  _ nobody belongs anywhere so you might as well make yourself at home right here  _ \-- kissed him hard, tongue and teeth and everything she’d wanted on that first night in Cherbourg but been afraid to ask for. Jason answered in kind, pushing into her mouth as he pulled her onto his lap, hands gripping her hips, then thighs, and just barely skimming her ass in between. She tangled the fingers of one hand in his hair while the other held onto a shoulder and gasped quietly when his mouth moved to her ear for a little nip. “Do you--” she stuttered as he flick the shell with the tip of his tongue. “Do you wanna, ya know, bunk with me tonight?”

The tongue stopped, and then Jason’s hands still on her thighs as he pulled back from her.  _ Not exactly the reaction I was hoping for _ , she thought, gut clenching a little as she started to shift off him. But his eyebrows were arching up and he was smirking at her when he said, “So are you inviting me for a sleepover? Or are we talking sex  _ and _ a sleepover?”

She knew she was blushing --  _ such a fucking loser, Eerie, can’t even flirt right _ \-- but she answered as steadily as she could. “I was leaning toward the latter.”

That smirk got downright devilish. “Good,” he drawled softly, hands sliding back up, “because I’ve been staring at your ass all night.”

“Must’ve been hard with the cape,” she commented drily as her brain tried to cope with the implied message that  _ holy shit, he wants this too _ . 

Jason leaned in to kiss her neck. “Actually, the tease made the glimpses I did get all the fucking hotter.” 

Eerie let out a little puff of air, the only thing she could manage really, before she slid off his lap and grabbed a hand, tugging him back toward the hallway. He huffed a laugh at her eagerness and snagged the handle of his backpack as he followed, pushing the bedroom door shut behind him when she attached herself to his mouth again. She let her arms circle around his neck as his hands found her ass again and when he lifted her against him, she readily wrapped legs around his waist and pressed herself into him. A moment later, her back was against the wall and he was grinding right over her clit in the best way possible. Her mouth found his jaw and throat, skirting teeth over the skin and tasting him --  _ soap now, but I bet it was sweat and leather earlier _ ... 

Another moment, and she was on her back on the bed, but before he could crawl on top of her, pupils blown wide in those eerie blue-green eyes, she said, “Clothes. Take them off.” She started struggling with her own, jerking the tank-top over her head and fighting with her sports bra. Jay laughed again. “Are you that excited about getting me naked?” he asked, slowly pulling off his own t-shirt. 

“Getting undressed is always really awkward,” she said in a hurry, trying to hide her embarrassment, “and I’m still in my gear, which is designed for function, not aesthetics.”

“Hey, no complaints here.” Eerie’s eye followed the slide of his sweats down his legs as she struggling with her leggings and underwear. He’d turned away from her like he’s doing his own little tease now, and that was okay with her because it meant as long as she worked fast enough, by the time he turned back around he’d see all of her at once and if there was something lacking in the appeal, well, better to find out now so he could go back to the couch and she could stay here in bed and swear never, ever listen to Older Eerie or Dick Grayson ever again. 

Still, it was worth it to see that ass up close and in person when the boxer briefs slid down to join the sweat pants on the floor.  _ Dick is going to ask about this, isn’t he _ ? she thought idly as she pushed herself farther back on the bed. 

Jason wasted no time when he finally turned around, almost diving on her. A hand found one of her breasts and gently squeezed and they both let out a little groan as their lips met again. One of his legs slotted between hers in a very precise way, and slowly, as Jay licked and sucked and bit her neck and collarbone, all the way down to one pert nipple, Eerie realized she was basically humping his thigh and whimpering, but  _ God _ …

“So,” he purred against her throat, “tell me what you like.”

“That’s -- ah! -- that’s a big question,” she managed to get out as he shifted his weight forward into some  _ delicious _ pressure against her clit.

He looked up at her, grinning smugly at all the ways he had to make her moan. “Then tell me one thing you like.”

The next groan was definitely one of exasperation, and Jason just watched her chewing her bottom lip with no sign of moving forward until she gave him some kind of answer. “C’mon,” he cajoled instead. “I know that, like, actually saying what you want is some kind of fucking taboo or kink or whatever, but the sex is so much better when you both have an idea of what the other likes.”

Another moment passed, then she closed her eyes and tilted her head back before saying to to the ceiling, all in a rush, “I like a little time to adjust to a cock inside me, then I like it rough and hard.”

He fairly growled in response, mouth coming back to her neck and his hips bucking into her. “Oh, E, we can definitely arrange that.”

“And what do you like?” she asked as her fingers grasped at the scars and muscles of his back, all the way down to his ass to pull him tighter against her.

“Audible feedback,” he said without hesitation. “I want to know when I’m doing something you like.” His hand moved down from her breast to slide a finger into her slit, and she hissed in response. He smirked again. “Just like that.”

Before she knew it the finger was inside her and she was whimpering again, this time into his shoulder as she bit and kissed the skin. A second joined it, and Jay whispered, “You’re so fucking wet, God, it smells amazing.” As he stroked the rough spot inside her that made her head spin, she gasped, “Please, I want you inside me.”

He rolled away suddenly, and it took Eerie a moment to realize he was digging in his bag. He came up with a condom, tore the package open with his teeth, and slid it into place, hand sliding over himself to smear the lube around. “Nice and slow, okay?” he said as she eyed his cock. She nodded, but he stayed where he was, and she remembered  _ audible feedback _ . “Yeah,” she said, looking up to his face and licking her lips. “Nice and slow at first.”

He folded back over her, catching her mouth with his as he lined up his member and gently pressed. The sensation of stretching around him… “Fuck,” she bit out with a whine. “Jay…”

He pulled out halfway and pressed in again. “So warm,” he rumbled right next to her ear, sending a shiver down her spine. “God, you feel good, Eerie.”

By the time Jay had slowly worked his way in to the hilt, Eerie was coming, head thrown back, teeth clench, fingers digging into his sides, and doing her best to stifle the moan that was torn from the depths of her. Jay held still, weight on his forearms, until the wave had passed over her. “So fucking hot,” he gasped, looking down at her before letting his body down and pulling himself in deeper with a hand on her hip. “Jesus. You’re gonna make me come before we’re even started.” 

“Then we’ll just have to go another round,” she said into his hair, and his hips bucked in response, making her whine again. “Please, Jay, harder.”

He gave a few experimental thrusts to gauge her reaction, and apparently found the low, drawn-out “yessssssss” that she hissed to be sufficient, because he pushed himself up onto his knees and grabbed her hips to start pounding away in earnest and suddenly her brain is nowhere as every fiber of her focuses between her legs where her cunt is sparking with electricity. Her hands scrabble at his thighs and her back arches and his hand travels up to her breast to pinch a nipple. There are words coming out of her mouth, but it’s something along the lines of “Fuck, Jay, good, so good, please, fuck, please, good” on an endless repeat. He pulled her legs up to rest on his shoulders and she’s watching him pump in and out of her, hard lines of his stomach flexing and his eyes are glued to her and it’s just all so… so…

She came again, and so did he with a sound that made her melt completely. For several long seconds, they stayed where they were, chests heaving and Eerie trying hard to swallow because her throat was a little raw. Then Jay pulled out and leaned over her again, kissing her softly but with no less passion, hand cupped against her jaw. She hummed into it, fingers finding the hair at the base of his neck, and then she was pressed up against his side, head resting on his shoulder with arms tight around her, and her mind was so, so blank and free. 

“Good?” his voice drifted through the fog of impending sleep.

“Good,” she slurred, snuggling in closer. 


	20. Chapter 20

It was pretty typical as far as his nightmares usually went. Clowns and crowbars. The smell of burning flesh. Trying to fight and never managing to land a punch. Trying to run and never getting his feet moving… and then everything overlaid with green and  _ rage _ \--

When he was actually feeling his body again, Jason realized that it was Eerie’s arms he was gripping right before he threw her into the nearest wall. “It’s me, Jay,” she was saying in a low voice, “you’re with me in Bludhaven and we’re at home and you’re safe…” She was crouched next to him in the bed, not fighting against his hold. Dropping her arms like they were burning, he swung his legs around to sit up facing away from her and spat, “Fuck.”

A hand started to ghost over his shoulder, but Jason flinched away. “Don’t touch me,” he bit out.  _ Don’t touch me right now while there’s still those little fucking green edges around everything and the only thing that eases it back is blood red. _ She pulled back her hand, but the heat of her body was still close, and he wanted to yell at her to get her stupid bitch ass  _ away  _ from him because he was so fucking  _ angry _ and if he hurt her… if he hurt her  _ again _ , he’d...he’d…

“I need a minute,” he managed to get out, “I just need a minute.”

“Okay, Jay,” she said, tone still calm and soft. He felt her weight ease on the bed until she was sitting next to him with a space between them. “Just take your time.”

And he damn well did, working his way through the meditations Ducra had taught him three times before finally raising his head from his hands to not quite meet Eerie’s eyes. “Did I hurt you?” he asked.

“Nah, I’m good,” she said, but he could see bruises already forming on her forearms. “You okay?”

He laughed darkly. “I coulda killed you and you’re worried if I’m okay.”

“Do you usually kill people with your nightmares?” she asked, and her tone was now very dry.

Instead of answering the question --  _ not yet _ \-- he shifted to get his feet under him better before standing, saying “I’ll get outta your hair.”  _ Fucked it up again, Jay. Don’t know what you thought was gonna happen, idiot _ .

“Sit down,” Eerie ordered, and when he looked around at her, she was doing her best Bat glare. “Sit your ass down and listen to me a minute.”

So he did, because he figured he owed her that much ( _ damn, she bruises easy _ ), but he kept his face toward the wall. 

She took a deep breath and let it out in a huff. “I had a lot of things I was scared of when I invited you in here last night,” she started, and that doesn’t make him feel any less like shit, no sirree, but Eerie kept going. “Like, what if you took one look at me and was suddenly like, ‘Sorry, but I just realized I’m totally gay.’ Or maybe this morning you’d wake up and be like, ‘Uh, I was definitely being mind-controlled last night or I never would have done this.’ Or maybe there would be an alien invasion and the League would be calling me because I could stop the whole thing but I’d be too busy getting laid to pick up and we’d wake up to, like, total dystopia. Or maybe this is the night I’d actually locate the Untitled before it killed the entire city, or that maybe I’d fuck up the entire course of this timeline of the multiverse because I wasn’t out there--”

Jason couldn’t stop his himself. “You know all that is unbelievably unlikely,” he interrupted.

“Not the point, asshole,” she shot back at him, but she didn’t sound angry. “The point is… I have issues. Like, the meds I take, they aren’t just to keep me from projecting and making everyone else feel like shit. They keep me functional on a daily basis so I’m not a helpless puddle on the floor worrying about whatever thing it was I did wrong when I was eight years old.” She sighed again, and this time Jason let his head turn until he was looking at her face. “And I’m not trying to make this a ‘who has the most baggage’ competition. What I’m trying to say is… you having nightmares doesn’t scare me away.” She shrugged. “Just like me having a panic attack didn’t scare you away.”

And slowly it began to dawn on Jason that maybe  _ this _ was what Roy meant when he said this relationship was simple, because he didn’t have to  _ explain _ the nightmares (he was down to about three nights in every ten, which was really quite impressive, considering that he used to just not sleep to avoid them). He didn’t have to explain why he would wake up fighting or why it was dangerous to grab him or why sometimes when he woke up, he was just a fucking monster. Because Eerie already knew. There didn’t have to be some big heart-to-heart, kum-ba-ya moment of laying it all out while she cried for him and he worried that this would just fuck the whole thing up. Because Eerie already knew.

As Jason ran through all this in his head, he watched Eerie watching him. Her eyes were steady, and he didn’t make much of it that her jaw was trembling just a hair because hadn’t she just admitted how worried she was that this thing, whatever it was between them, would just go down in flames? Hadn’t she just admitted that she was trusting him despite her fears? 

_ Okay, now’s the moment not to fuck it up, Jay. _ He took a breath and said, “I don’t like being touched when… but talking is good. Lots of talking.”

She nodded her understanding, and the corners of her lips lifted a little. “I like someone to hold my hand I’m, you know, freaking out.”

He nodded himself. “I’ll keep that in mind.” After an only semi-awkward silence, she asked, “Can I touch you now?”

He licked his lips and answered a little hoarsely, holding out his hand to her, “Yeah.”

She took it in her own and tugged him with her as she scooted back into the covers. “Come back to bed?”

“Yeah.”

 

+++++

 

Roy stared at the ceiling, wondering if the very,  _ very _ light scorching on the spackling would keep Eerie from getting her deposit back. Maybe if they didn’t call any attention to it…

He felt his teeth grinding together again and deliberately relaxed his jaw. _ Accept that I am powerless, right Waylon? _ he thinks to himself.  _ Because accepting shit is so damn easy _ …

Kori was gone, had left about twenty minutes ago with that restlessness and moodiness that Roy really,  _ really  _ wanted to believe was all about claustrophobia and needing to get away from everyone for a little while. “I miss the ocean,” she’d said, muscles working like they couldn’t quite stretch out all the way. “I’ll only be gone a little while, Roy.”

Roy was starting to develop a sneaking suspicion, but it was just so hard to really know  _ anything _ about  _ anything _ when dealing with alien girlfriends.

Throwing the covers off in a sudden movement, he stood and tugged on a shirt and a pair of shorts. Jaybird would have seen Kori go out; maybe he’d noticed something off about the princess, or maybe he could reassure Roy that it was just his endless paranoia about screwing up the good things in his life talking again. But when he padded out into the living, Jay wasn’t there. No sign of his gear either. It wasn’t  _ that  _ unusual; sometimes Jay just took off to do whatever it was he did, but he usually at least left a note. So Roy plopped down on the couch and sent a text:  _ You take off on us? _

And a few seconds later heard the sound of Jay’s phone beeping  _ in Eerie’s room _ .

And Roy’s face broke into a grin that the Joker would envy as he settled himself down to wait for that door at the end of the hall to open.

He didn’t have to wait long. A few minutes later the door cracked open and Jay slunked out with that one piece of white hair sticking almost straight up. He gave Roy a glare as he stalked to the bathroom, firmly closing the door behind him. He was still glaring after he took a piss and Roy chirped a happy little “‘Morning, Jaybird!” at him. 

“You didn’t even make coffee,” Jay accused when he made it to the kitchen.

“I was too worried about what might have happened to you, bro.” He got up to lean against the bar, but not before catching a glimpse of Eerie -- that was definitely sex hair -- sneaking into the bathroom with just a t-shirt over her underwear. “I mean,” Roy went on, “I wake up and you’ve vanished. Into thin air. For all I know, you got swept away by a succubus in the night!”

Jay rolled his eyes. “Can we please not making a fucking thing outta this, Roy?” It was phrased as a request, but Jay was clearly issuing an order. And Roy didn’t really do orders well.

“Oh, so it’s a  _ fucking thing _ that we’re talking about,” he quipped. 

“Damn it, Roy.”

“Is that a blush I’m seeing? You won’t need the helmet tonight if you keep that up.”

 

+++++

 

The only light in the burnt-out apartment was from a flashlight Red Hood had attached to the wall and pointed at Hewitt. The man himself was securely fastened to a straight-back chair Arsenal had pulled out of a dumpster a block away, head slumped down over his chest in unconsciousness, and Kairos was crouched in front of him, studying who knew what. Hood was willing to wait, though; they still had several hours before they needed to move him back to his penthouse, and Arsenal and Starfire were keeping watch up top in case any trouble showed up. 

Kairos seemed to either find what she was looking for or give up, because she suddenly pulled out her phone and, after tapping and looking for a few seconds, drew a rough compass rose in front of Hewitt’s feet with a piece of chalk. Both items disappeared back into her utility belt as she stood, cape swirling as she faced him. “Alright, let’s get this party started.”

He nodded. “So how do you want to play this?”

“You take lead, get him scared, talk in nonspecific terms about the information he has that you want, and if a name comes up that I want to follow, I’ll step in.” She looked back to Hewitt, cocking her hip out a little and crossing her arms over her chest. “I don’t anticipate it taking much to spill his guts. It’s just a case of figuring out the right pressure point to get what we need.” 

Hood cracked his neck and rolled his shoulders. “Alright,” he said approaching the man in the chair and let his hand slide along the outside of Kairos’s arm as he passed, just for a moment. She took a couple of steps back into the shadows, and Hood grabbed a handful of Hewitt’s hair to pull his head up and start patting his face. “Tony,” he said in a little sing-song voice. “Tony, it’s time for you to wake up.” The taps to the cheeks got a little harder. “Time to wake up and smell the fucking roses, Tony.”

Hewitt’s eyes moved under his eyelids before they fluttered open. “Wazzit?” he slurred. “The fuck you want…”

“I want you to wake. The fuck. Up,” Hood growled, slapping Hewitt in earnest this time. The man jerked, suddenly realizing he was tied down and pulling his own hair. Hood just held on, even tilting Hewitt’s head back farther to look up at him. “You all with me now, Tony?” he asked. “You ready to have a little chat?”

“Who the hell do you think you are?” Hewitt snapped back, jaw working hard. 

“Ever heard of the Red Hood?” He gave the head in his hand a little shake. “It’s your lucky day, my friend, cuz you get to meet him in person.”

Hewitt started laughing, but Hood knew it was just bluster. It was always bluster with these guys who thought they were real mobsters when they never got their hands bloody. “Fucking idiot,” Hewitt gasped out. “You been after the Oysters. Well, news flash, I don’t work for them.”

“Oh I know,” Hood said, finally letting go of Hewitt’s hair and wiping the strands that clung to his glove on his pants. “You work for Japes. But that doesn’t change the fact that one Mr. Grisham of the Oysters has been visiting you and your brother.” Hewitt paled a little, and Hood pressed the point. “I bet you have all kinds of interesting information floating around in that head of yours, information that the Red Hood would find valuable.”

Hewitt tried to keep up the bravado. “I don’t know nothing,” he insisted, leaning forward into Hood’s space as he said it.

“Yeah, that’s what they all say in the beginning.” Hood punched him in the stomach, watched the man try to double over and groan. He and Kairos had discussed it and decided that weird body aches and bruising would be easier to account for in the “bender scenario” than damage to the face, so Hood would mostly stick to gut shots. He didn’t give Hewitt the option of redeeming himself before punching him again. Then he grabbed the other man by the hair again and hauled his face up. “How about now? Still an ignorant little shit?” Hewitt didn’t say anything, just stared up with his mouth hanging open. Kairos was right; this idiot was nothing. “C’mon, Tony, the sooner you start talking, the less I have to hurt you.”

“F-f-fuck off,” Hewitt whispered. So Hood punched him again, wincing a little after the contact.  _ That was probably a cracked rib _ , he thought. He took a couple of steps back, crossing his arms over his chest and just waiting for Hewitt to catch his breath a little. He heard Kairos shift minutely in the darkness behind him, but apparently she had nothing to offer yet, so they’d have to keep going.

The old man that Talia had found to teach him the practice of interrogation had been former GRU, back when the Cold War was the only war and the GRU was still a thing. He had prattled endlessly on the emotional nature of torture, on the practice of peeling a person back layer by layer, on the need for precise strokes of psychological violence for the safety of both the interrogator and the subject. “You have to demonstrate your willingness to carry through with your threats of harm,” he’d said more than once, “or else the threats are meaningless. On the other hand, it is usually the threat and the fear that compels the subject to talk, rather than the actual pain itself. There must always be something worse that could come.”

Jason had been very bad at interrogation back then, too quick to anger and hurt, impatient with the slow building of anxiety and dread that the old man had insisted was the cornerstone of successful praxis. When he’d finally gotten tired of the old guy’s lectures and gone to kill him, if only to take such a sadistic fuck out of the world, all he’d found was a note that said “Nice try” and a copy of  _ The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly _ which the old guy kept insisting Jason had to watch.

Now, though, now he was starting to understand those lessons a little more. Now, the goal was not so much to get the guy to actually talk as it was to get him to think about what he shouldn’t be saying. Now they were working within very specific parameters of what Red Hood could and could not do to him physically and, while the subject didn’t know that, Hood had to keep up the facade that it could always get worse. So, once Hewitt had stopped wheezing so hard, Hood said, “You know, I’m not really expecting you to say anything at this point. It’s really just a warm up. But I’d be a real dick if I didn’t even give you the option to talk before I start, ya know, breaking fingers.”

The barest twitch of the right pinky gave away Hewitt’s nerves, but the man forced himself to chuckle. “I’m starting to think you don’t actually know anything. So what if Mr. Grisham came by. My brother does his taxes. You’re gonna get yourself all bent outta shape with nothing to show for it and in return you’re gonna have Emily Japes breathing down your neck for the rest of your god...damn...life.” Hewitt’s attention had turned from the masked man in front of him as his spiel petered out and Kairos stalked out of the shadows. Hood stepped to the side, noticing the beads of sweat that had started to run down Hewitt’s face before he looked K’s way. For the first time ever, he realized that the wider, rounder shape of her whiteout lens made her look vaguely alien, and with the hood pulled up over her head, hell, she’d give Raven a run for her money in the creepy-lady-of-the-otherworld contest. At least, based on first impressions. 

Kairos took her time sauntering up, not stopping until she was practically straddling one of Hewitt’s legs and looking straight down at him. After a moment of just staring, she eased in even closer, arms hanging loosely at her sides, attention never deviating, and one knee coming up to press lightly on Hewitt’s balls. “Tell me about Lisa,” she said in a low voice.

Hood was… uncomfortably aroused.

For a moment, Hewitt just gaped up at her, then the knee on his nuts pushed a little harder and he said all in a rush, “I don’t know any Lisa.”

“Yes you do,” Kairos answered, same level tone, “and you will tell me about her, or Hood here will pay a visit to Uncle Leo.”

Hood did the best he could to stand still and look menacing when Hewitt’s eye cut his way, but he was suddenly very restless, like a skittering of ants down his spine and back up to burrow into his skull. 

“I know how much you like your uncle, Tony,” Kairos was saying, almost affectionately. “I watched you two having lunch just the other day. He’s not as strong as he once was, is he? It would be a real shame if Hood had to go see him. The shock alone… well, you know how it is with older folks sometimes.”

The words were supervillain cliches, but instead of feeling amused or even embarrassed, Hood was just feeling agitated. Then, a revelation: Kairos was projecting. She was the source of the anxiety. And if he was feeling it, then Hewitt would be feeling it all the more, given his current situation. So Hood took a deep breath and gritted his teeth, reminding himself that, like the rage from the Pit, this was not him -- it was an outside force acting on him.

“Tell me about Lisa,” Kairos prompted again, and her leg squeezed that much closer into Hewitt’s junk.

Hewitt swallowed hard, seemingly unable to pull his eyes away from Kairos’s face now. “She’s… I…” He stopped to lick his lips. “I have sex with her.”

“Yes, we’re well aware of how much you enjoy sex, Tony,” Kairos said and her knee came down hard enough to elicit a pained moan from Hewitt before she pulled it back again. “Do you have sex with her often?”

Hewitt hesitated again. “Every few weeks,” he admitted, “I go visit her.”

“And where does she live?” 

Hewitt whined again, but this time it wasn’t physical pain; his face was pained with despair. “I don’t know where she lives,” he confessed. “Please, leave Leo alone, he hasn’t done anyth--”

“Where do you meet Lisa?” Kairos demanded. 

“Where she works,” Hewitt gasped. “Tangerine.”

“Tangerine?”

“A cathouse out in the Paseo. Just please, leave Leo alone. I can’t -- if anything happened to him -- fuck…”

Kairos stepped back and turned to Hood. “We’re done here.” He nodded and stepped in to quickly jab a hypo in the side of Hewitt’s neck, dosing him with the little amnesia cocktail he’d cooked up earlier in the day. The man was out in seconds. 

In that same amount of time, Kairos was blowing chunks on the other side of the room.


	21. Chapter 21

“Shit, you okay, Kai?”

Kairos waved a hand vaguely as Hood’s hand fell on her back. Her stomach clenched again, but nothing came out, and she spit emphatically several times before straightening. “I’m good,” she said, making a point to not look at the mess on the floor and digging a piece of gum out of her belt (a staple ever since her first time tangling with Clayface and getting a mouthful of ick). “Let’s get moving.”

Hood grabbed her arm as she started back toward Hewitt. “Whoa, seriously, Kairos, you wanna tell me what the hell is going on?”

She couldn't see his face, but the edge of  _ don’t-fuck-with-me-right-now _ in his voice gave her an idea of how he was feeling. “You got hit by it too, didn't you?”

“The projection? Yeah, a little, but you wanna explain why you’re puking your guts out?” His voice sounded harsh even when it dropped a little softer. “I thought you were okay with this.”

She stared at him, blinked once in confusion, then realized what was probably going through his head, that she was reacting negatively to watching this (very light) torture session. “It’s backlash,” she explained. “I deliberately push the projection, and then I throw up. It’s why I never told B that I could do it.” She turned back to Hewitt, working on his bonds so that Starfire could transport him to his apartment building. “Don’t want to spend my whole life puking on rooftops.” She shrugged. “Besides, it’s only useful in really specific scenarios.” 

“And you didn’t think that warning me might have been a good idea?” Hood was beside her, sliding a very sharp-looking knife through the zip ties at Hewitt’s ankles.

“Sorry,” she said, wincing a little. “I didn’t know I’d be doing that. Kind of an impulsive choice. And, you know, secrets.”

Hood turned his face up toward her. “It’s fine,” he said, definitely sounding less annoyed. “You’re really okay?”

Kairos smiled tightly. “Yeah, I mean, I’m gonna skip any tilt-a-whirl rides tonight, but I’m good.”

He nodded and hit his comms. “Starfire, Arsenal, we’re ready for transport.”

“Roger, boss,” Arsenal answered in both their ears. A few moments later, the redheads were climbing through the window. “You get what we need?” Arsenal asked, giving Hewitt a quick once-over.

“Yeah, I’m going to head there now,” Kairos said, pulling out her phone to find an exact address.

Hood crossed his arms over his chest. “I’ll send Starfire to watch your back as soon as she drops Hewitt off.”

“Sounds good,” she answered, already aiming her grappling hook at a nearby fire escape. She had some idea of what she was going find and couldn’t wait to get confirmation.

 

+++++

 

Starfire carried the limp body while Arsenal and Red Hood followed as quickly as they could. Once they made it to the roof of the lawyer’s building, Arsenal started the process of hacking the security cameras and alarm system for Hewitt’s floor, humming to himself as he worked. Hood stood over him, fiddling with one of his .45s in an incredibly distracting manner. “Everything go alright in there, Hood?” Arsenal asked, frowning at his partner’s agitation.

“Fine.”

“You’re not acting like it’s fine.”

The noise of Hood’s twitchy fingers stilled. “Kairos is pushing herself too hard on this case,” he said after a moment.

Arsenal stood, waving at Starfire to head down to Hewitt’s window, now that sirens wouldn’t blare when she opened it. “Well, after this you can treat her to a nice little island vacay.” He and Hood moved in tandem to connect repelling lines and ease over the edge of the roof. “Hell, I’ll even pointedly look the other way when you get out the margarita fixin’s. Or Kori ‘n’ me could drop y’all off somewhere on our way back. Acapulco? Bermuda? Rio? I mean, Rio’s a little more out of the way but...”

“Let’s finish the job first,” Hood insisted, easily launching himself into the open window as Arsenal followed. “Then...maybe.”

The place was decorated in that sparse  _ I-have-too-much-money-to-bother-with-things _ look favored by rich bitches everywhere. Arsenal couldn’t see it, but he was pretty sure Hood was sneering too. Starfire had already pushed her way into the master bedroom and laid Hewitt on the bed. “Alright, Starfire,” Hood said, “Matt should be down in front of the building, so get him up here too.” As the Tamaranean brushed by them -- Arsenal gave her ass a little pat for good measure -- Hood started pulling things out of his coat pockets, including a box of condoms and a few small, nondescript baggies with just enough powder inside to be suggestive. 

Arsenal whistled. “Damn, Jay, you really thought this one through.” 

Hood shrugged. “Help me get the bed all messed up.”

They took turns lifting Hewitt up and tangling the sheets underneath him, then they wrestled him out of his clothes, tossing them around haphazardly. As soon as they heard Starfire in the other room, Hood called, “Go watch Kai’s back. We’ll rendezvous with you there.” And the alien princess was gone again. The skinny guy that Hood had hired to pick Hewitt up for them poked his head in the door. Arsenal just caught how wide the kid’s eyes when he saw the bruises that were starting to bloom on Hewitt’s side, but before he could open his mouth, Hood said, “You did good, Matt. Just wait in the living room for a minute.” The kid retreated and Hood went on. “Check his ribs, willya? I think I mighta cracked one.”

As Arsenal ran his hands over Hewitt’s chest, fingers probing, Hood dug through the guy’s bedside drawers until he came up with a bottle of lube, which he began liberally squirting on the bed, over Hewitt’s junk, and, after Arsenal had finished his examination and helped roll him over, down the man’s asscrack. Once half the bottle was gone, Hood tossed in onto the nightstand. “Well?” he asked.

“I think they’re just bruised,” Arsenal said, readjusting his hat. Hood nodded and stood back to survey his handiwork. “What do ya think?”

Arsenal shrugged. “Looks like a rich fucker’s bender to me.”

Back out in the living room, Matt was sitting on the couch, body pulled in on itself like he was afraid of touching too much. “Alright, man, couple of things before we go,” Hood said, tossing him the box of condoms. “One, fill a bunch of those up, make it look like a real fuck-fest. Two, eat whatever you want from the fridge or call in take-out, yeah?” Hood waited until Matt nodded to go on, then tossed him a prepaid phone. “Three, if Tony in there wakes up, tell him you had a nice time with him and leave, then call the number in the contacts list. Four, if I or Arsenal call you, leave. Five, once you leave, get your stuff and get outta town.” Finally, Hood produced a roll of bills and a business card, the one with the Batman Incorporated logo that Kairos had given him earlier, and handed them over. “You go to Gotham, to the address on this card. If anyone asks, you tell ‘em Kairos sent you, okay? Don’t mention my name.”

Matt swallowed. “You swindling me into this job, Hood? Thought you said this was gonna be on the up-and-up.”

“Kairos is our other partner, dude,” Arsenal explained, giving the kid a smile that said  _ we-have-nothing-to-hide _ . “She’s the one with the fancy connections. We just don’t want you to get shuffled around too much by dropping the wrong name.”

“Yeah, okay,” the kid said, sounding satisfied.

“Any questions?” Hood asked.

Matt’s eyes darted around like he was looking just to make sure there weren’t any hovering in plain sight. “Nah, man, I think I’m good. Uh, how long do you think he’ll be out?”

“My guess is twelve to eighteen hours. But when he wakes up, you say, ‘Hey glad you didn’t die, that was fun, I gotta go,’ okay?”

“Yeah, I got this.” And suddenly the kid did seem like he was okay, eyeing the giant entertainment system and shoving the cash and card deep into the pockets of the designer jeans Hood had supplied him with.

“Alright, call me if there’s any trouble.”

And Red Hood and Arsenal left a prostitute guarding the man they had kidnapped, tortured, drugged, and gently returned to his bed to slather in lube.  _ So much better than the superhero thing _ , Arsenal thought.

 

+++++

 

“Kairos, I need your location,” Starfire said, flitting at a relatively low speed in the general direction the woman had disappeared before. 

“Southeast,” Kairos returned immediately, and Starfire was relieved that she didn’t try to give her street names or anything like that. “I’ll put a flare on the roof. Look for a big neon palm tree and head east a little farther.”

She found the tree with little trouble, then spotted the small light on a rooftop that marked Kairos’s location. Kairos was on her belly at the roof’s edge, eyes locked on a house across the street, fingers settled lightly against the sides of her mask. Starfire crouched beside her.

Then Starfire started to get bored. “So you and Jason have become lovers.” It wasn’t a question, but Kairos hummed in response. Starfire didn’t miss the slight tensing of the shoulders and rolled her eyes; humans were so… so…

She couldn’t find a word, so she went on. “I am glad. Jason spends so much time pushing back against his negative emotions that his positive ones become stifled.”

Another hum in response. 

“And I believe he will be a considerate sexual partner,” she continued, then paused. “Although, Roy told me it would make you uncomfortable for me to say that.”

“It’s fine,” Kairos answered, attention not wavering. “I already knew you two had made out or whatever. And he is a considerate partner.”

Starfire smiled; it was nice that Kairos was being more relaxed about this than Jason. “I believe you will be a good partner for him as well,” she said.

“I’m glad you think so,” Kairos said, and while she never wavered in her study of the building across from them, Starfire could hear the warmth in the tone. 

“Of course, if you were to do anything to hurt him, Roy and I would be very displeased.”

Kairos snorted. “I supposed that’s only fair, since Hood has to deal with Robin breathing down his neck.”

Glad to have that out of the way, Starfire turned her attention to the building Kairos was watching. “What is this place?”

“It’s called Tangerine. It’s a brothel.”

Starfire’s head cocked to the side. “Do you think the Untitled is in there?”

Kairos sighed. “My gut says yes, but I don’t have the data to back that up yet. They keep the windows pretty guarded from long-range viewing. Whenever Hood and Arsenal get here, I’m going to move in closer.”

As though summoned, Red Hood came over the comms. “We’re leaving Hewitt’s place now. Where are you?”

Starfire zoned out as Kairos gave directions, but her attention was claimed once again when the other woman sat up abruptly and placed a hand on her arm. “Look,” she said, all in a rush, “normally, I wouldn’t do something like this or say anything at all, but you should know that Roy is willing to give you everything he’s got, so you either need to shake off whatever it is that’s keeping you from being with him -- from being present with him -- or you need to cut him loose.” 

Kairos’s gaze was earnest, even with the mask obscuring her eyes, but Starfire jerked her arm away, leaping up to float just above the roof, hands glowing with the beginnings of starbolts. “It is none of your concern,” she said coldly before streaking up high into the part of the atmosphere that matched the frigidness of her tone, driven by her anger. “Humans have no right to tell me what to do,” she whispered.

 

+++++

 

_ Well _ , thought Kairos, watching Starfire disappear in an orange blaze,  _ that was obviously the wrong thing to say. _

Now she just had to hope that Kori didn’t decide to kill her.

Might as well try to finish the job first. 

The curtains at Tangerine were frustrating, but she was fairly certain that from a closer position, she’d be able to cut the glass and move the fabric just enough to get a peep. And a peep was really all she needed. If this was, as her gut suggested, the Untitled’s lair. At the very least, this was definitely the place Mystery Mistress Molly lived, and while two crooked guys from different crime organizations frequenting the same cat house wasn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility, it seemed like a pretty big coincidence considering everything else they had in common. 

So Kairos devoted the next few minutes to trying to decide exactly which windows she wanted to see inside. 

“Where’s Starfire?” Red Hood asked as soon as his boots touched down behind her.

Kairos pointed in a vaguely up direction. 

“Okay...” Hood said slowly, like he wasn’t going to ask for any more details because said details wouldn’t make any sense. “Arsenal, figure out what your girl is up to.” Then he joined Kairos in studying the house. “I got a nagging feeling that Hewitt gave that intel up too easy.”

“Oh definitely,” Kairos agreed, “if Lisa was the Untitled. But she’s not. Neither is Mistress Molly, who I’m pretty sure also works here.” She sighed. “Do you remember when I jokingly mentioned super subconscious telepathy?”

“Yeah…”

“My current working hypothesis is that the Untitled is the madam in this house of ill repute and they are using the working girls and/or boys to get their claws in organized crime.”

Hood thought it over. “It would explain how they’d get access to that many gangs.”

“And why none of the guys I’ve tailed have shown a single common thread. It’s because they’re all having sex with different people…”

“And those people are serving as the arms of the Untitled.”

“Yeah.” She watched him, watched his body, to see if he bought the theory, or if he thought she was completely off her rocker about this one. He did this little thing where he set his shoulders when he made a decision -- not squaring them exactly, just settling them, like he was getting ready to take a hit. She grinned a little when she saw it; Bruce’s files on this particular Robin had said he was destined to be a brawler. 

So when Hood set his shoulders now, Kairos knew that he was at least willing to help her take the next step. Actually, when she thought about it, the fact that he’d hesitated at all was more interesting, considering that just a few weeks ago, he would have been ready to go in, guns blazing, if Kairos thought there was even the least little chance of the building housing an Untitled. “So what do we do next?” he asked. “Go up to the front door and ask for a good time?”

Kairos shrugged. “Not a terrible idea, but I’m not really dressed for the brothel. I was thinking more along the lines of playing peeping tom in some of those windows.”

Hood chuckled. “You gonna video tape it this time, too?”

“Gotta pay for my crime-fighting lifestyle somehow. B put me on unpaid leave.”

So maybe Kairos hadn’t gotten eyes on the madam by the time they called it a night (Arsenal had never showed back up after Hood sent him after Starfire, but Hood didn’t seem too worried), but she had seen enough to know that the Untitled was there: all of the girls and the one boy she got eyes on had the same unquestioned devotion for Ms. Vera, and most of their sexual partners had shown at least a burgeoning devotion for the prostitutes. 

Back in the apartment, in the shower, Eerie tried to lay plans for the chaos that was sure to erupt. She’d sent Tim a message with the location and time of their strike, and he’d assured her that the Titans were be in place to help with the aftermath, but they had no real way to know what that aftermath would be. Honestly, Eerie was hoping that having Red Robin and company on the ground would mean she’d have some data to look over in the following weeks as they planned the next investigation. And that was all assuming that Jason managed to take out this Untitled without dying and they got out of Bludhaven at all.

Luckily, the anxiety express came to a screeching halt when Jason poked his head in the door and asked if he could join her. As he climbed in the shower with her, pulling her close and nibbling down her neck, all she was thinking was  _ he does smell like leather and sweat. _


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Burgersandfries was kind enough to remind me that people are still reading this thing, and it's so close to being done that it's stupid not to finish, so I'm back on the horse, people!

The plan was simple enough: Red Hood and Kairos would walk in the front door. Hopefully the Untitled would assume this was Hood making a move on the local mobsters again and keep the whole ancient evil thing under control, at least until they located her. Kairos would confirm, Hood would pull out his fancy swords, all hell would break loose, and eventually Arsenal and Starfire, who’d be keeping things under control outside the building, would extract them. Then the Titans would come in a tie everybody up until they calmed down. Or something.

She had gotten some sleep, thanks to overreaching her usual limits with Hewitt and Jason’s, ah, attentiveness. After the shower, she’d collapsed into bed, and he’d started to leave her there after stroking her damp hair. “Where you going?” she mumbled when he got up.

“The couch.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “Didn’t want to presume.”

“Want you here.” 

“Okay.”

So when she woke up the next morning, she took a minute to snuggle deeper into Jason’s arms and listen to his heavy breath before her brain knocked up into overdrive with its list-making.

 

Item 1: The murder wall needed to be catalogued, documented, disassembled, and destroyed. 

Item 2: Everybody’s stuff had to be packed and ready to chuck in the ship as soon as it got dark enough for the activity to go unnoticed.

Item 3: All linens needed to be washed and stored. 

Item 4: All food needed to be removed from the kitchen and all the dishes needed to be washed.

Item 5: The apartment needed to be scrubbed from top to bottom. Getting every last trace of their DNA out of there was pretty much impossible, but they could at least make it hard as hell for anyone to get their hands on it.

 

And so, Eerie tackled the day.

But now it was night, and Starfire was a tiny dot above their position and Arsenal had just parked the ship and Kairos and Hood were giving the brothel one last look-over before they started to fuck shit up.

“Remember, Red,” she said into her comm over the private channel she and Red Robin were currently sharing, “no matter what happens, no one engages until we’re clear.”

“I heard you the first three times,” Red Robin replied drily. 

“Yeah, well, I’m not going to have a chance to remind you once this party is started.”

“You really think it’s going to be that bad?”

“Is fear toxin bad, Red? Joker gas?”

Red took a moment before he answered. “We’ll stay clear until you’re out of the way. We’ll send you whatever video data we collect. Anything else?”

Kairos sighed, gut roiling. “No, just…”

“I’ll be careful,” Red finished for her. “You be careful too.”

“Alright, Kairos out.” She looked over at Hood. “So?”

He was inscrutable in that helmet, but he seemed to be studying her. “You’re jumpier than last time,” he said.

She shrugged then rolled her neck. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“You good?”

She pushed aside her doubts to smirk at him, settling into a mask of cockiness to distract her from her anxiety. “Like a fucking boss,” she quipped.

It started out well-enough. Hood kicked down the door, guns in hand, while Kairos stalked in behind in, batarangs in her fingers hidden by her cape. “Alright, ladies,” Hood drawled to the startled women lounging on chairs and couches in the foyer. “I’d like to meet the madam.”

The hostess hid her surprise well, getting her features under control smoothly asking, “Who shall I say is calling?”

“The Red Hood.” He let the name hang there in the air, doing its work. Kairos watched the sudden twitch of fear along all the lines in the room that ran between Hood and the women, but the hostess was all professional courtesy as she lifted a phone by the desk. “The Red Hood is here to see you, Ms. Vera,” she said, and her voice only wobbled a little. She listened for a moment, then hung up the phone. “Right this way, Mr. Hood,” she said, starting up a nearby staircase.

Kairos snorted.  _ Mr. Hood _ …

Ms. Vera’s office was located on the top floor at the very end of a hall of rooms. The scent of lilacs drifted heavily out the door when, after knocking, the hostess opened it. Kairos took one quick glance around the room, taking in plush red drapes and Victorian furniture, before her eyes settled on the woman seated behind a large oak desk that rivaled the one in Bruce’s study. “My my,” she said, “the Red Hood himself. To what do I owe this pleasure?” 

In the back of her mind, Kairos was hearing the Southern accent, placing it as coastal Georgian, or maybe Virginian, but she was focused on the web around the woman. And it was a  _ web _ , not just the random clattering of threads running about haphazard. Ms. Vera had worked very hard to secure her place in Bludhaven’s underworld, and for a moment, Kairos considered calling Hood off because she could learn  _ so many things… _

But Ms. Vera also had that same completely disaffected nature that she’d seen in Cherbourg, even as the hostess radiated undying devotion. “It’s her,” she muttered to Hood under her breath, then turned to stalk toward the hostess, who was still waiting just inside the door. “Red Hood would like to speak to Ms. Vera in private.” When the hostess made no sign of moving, Kairos took her upper arm in hand and forcibly removed her from the room as she heard the sound of Hood unsheathing his swords.

The change in the hostess was immediate, as she assumed the change in the madam was, but Kairos was ready, and the woman in front of her may have been filled with primal rage, but she was also wearing ungainly heels and had no training to speak of. A quick shot to the head put her down, and Kairos spared a few precious seconds to secure her wrists and ankles before opening the next door in the hall; she wanted to clear the floor before people made it up the stairs so there was less chance of anyone flanking either her or Hood who, if the crash behind her was any indication, had his hands full. 

The first room was empty, but when she went to enter the second room, the door was yanked open and she quickly ducked a poorly executed punch, sweeping the woman’s legs out from under her. Unfortunately, this left her open for a sharp kick from the woman’s current john. Kairos let the kick propel her back out into the hallway -- she definitely didn’t want to to get trapped in the room -- and was back on her feet in a flash, batarangs flashing out and impaling deep in the man’s bicep and chest and distracting him long enough for her to get in a few good hits. 

But the sounds of feet pounding up the stairs was getting louder, and Kairos needed to think about crowd control rather than taking down each one individually -- all she had to do was buy Hood time. “I’m dropping gas,” she said over the comms before slipping a small gas mask from her belt and over the cowl that covered her mouth and nose. It wasn’t especially comfortable, but it would allow to continue to communicate with her team. Tossing two gas canisters down to the end of the hallway, she said, “How are things outside?”

“Nothing yet,” Arsenal answered as she took another few precious seconds to secure the two people from the bedroom. “Oh wait, here they come.”

There was cacophony of coughing in the stairway and the  _ whump _ of a few bodies hitting the floor, but it didn’t stop the pair of real bruisers that seemed to be leading the charge. Fighting in this narrow space was not ideal, but at least she had something of a bottleneck and it was a lot harder to surround her.  _ Just hold out as long as possible _ , she told herself, ducking and hitting wherever and whenever she could.  _ Just buy him time _ .

The problem was, though, that she couldn’t hold out indefinitely. She used all her gas canisters, even tossed a few explosive pellets down the stairs, but people just kept coming, and the more people that went down, the more obstacles there were to trip over, more hands to shoot out to grab her. She lost her cape in the crush, unhooking it when it because a liability. She struggled to stay on her feet, even considered ducking into one of the bedrooms where she could still keep a bottleneck and have a clear playing field. Right before she could make that decision, giant footsteps pounded behind her, and she glanced over her shoulder just in time to see the Untitled running full tilt at her. Before she could move, it swung an appendage, knocking her back into the crowd behind her. Hands grabbed, feet kicked, someone even bit her, then there was a terrible shriek that was echoed by voices from all sides, then another hand was grabbing and pulling and Hood was saying, “Let’s go, now,”

She followed him into the madam’s office and out an broken window, and they grappled to the building across the way where the ship was waiting. Arsenal scrambled in behind them, tossing aside his bow and hitting the button to start the pre-programmed autopilot as Starfire zipped in just before the hatch closed. A few moments later, Arsenal let out a whoop. “And we’re clear, people! Fuckin’ A!”

Kairos was still trying to catch her breath a little when she turned her attention to Red Hood. He had thin slices across his torso, but that was normal she guessed, since blood seemed to be important for all rituals that killed ancient evil things. But the way he was slumped against the wall worried her a little. “Jay?” she asked. 

“Yeah?” he said, sounding distant.

“You alright?”

“Uh…”

Not reassuring. “I’m gonna take your helmet off, okay?” She’d watched him do it enough times to put her fingers in the right places to disarm the security mechanisms, then let it unhinged so she could pull it away from his head and study his face. His eyes were glassy and a spot on the side of his head was leaking blood, but he grinned at her slowly. “Hey you,” he said, slurring just a little. “We did it.”

“Yeah, we did,” she answered, finding a penlight in her belt and shining it in Jason’s eyes. “Did you hit your head?”

“Uh…” 

She snorted a laugh and looking at his dilated pupils. “The answer is yes, yes you did.”

“Aw, did Jaybird get a wittle concussion?” Arsenal quipped. 

“Shut up, Roy,” Jason snapped, or tried to snap, but it came out slow as molasses.

“Do you feel queasy?” Eerie asked, peeling off her mask and gloves to get a better look at the cut on Jason’s head. 

“No.”

“Head hurt?”

“Yeah.”

“How bad, scale of one to ten?”

“Maybe an eight?” 

The cut needed stitches, but it wasn’t too bad -- head wounds always bled like crazy. Eerie rummaged through all the stuff they currently had shoved in the ship until she found the first aid kit. “We got, what, two hours ‘til home?” she asked Arsenal as she sat on the floor next to Jason and opened the case.

“Hour and a half,” he answered after checking some screens. “We can do it faster if we need to…”

“Nah, he’s not critical. Just concussed.”

“Good thing he’s always relied on his looks rather than his smarts.”

“Fuck you,” Jason said, lifting his arm to flip Arsenal off, then groaning. “Now I’m starting to feel queasy.”

“Alright,” Eerie said, dabbing at the wound with an antiseptic wipe, “if you think you’re gonna puke, tell me.”

“Kay…”

“And Jay, you have to stay awake, at least until your pupils are back to normal.”

“Yeah, yeah…”

By the time they were home, Jason’s symptoms had abated enough for Eerie to feel okay with him going to sleep, so she tucked him in before heading to the med bay, where Kori was watching Roy stitch up a slash in his thigh. “He good?” the redhead asked, glancing up briefly. 

“Yeah,” Eerie answered, working the hidden zipper down the front of her body armour. “We’ll just have to keep him from, you know, doing things for a few days.”

Roy grunted in response, but Kori shifted her attention from Roy to her, and it made Eerie distinctly uncomfortable. Kori hadn’t spoken to her since she made the mistake of offering the Tamaranean relationship advice, and Eerie had been happy to let it lie. But now, Kori was eyeing her sharply as she stripped off her uniform. “Are you well?” she asked, sounding more aloof than concerned, but it was still something. 

“Just bruises, I think,” she answered quickly, looking down over her torso. The Untitled had left a clear mark across her torso, along with a peppering of finger marks on her arms and lower legs. “I look like a dalmatian,” she said drily.

“Those hookers got really handsy with you,” Roy agreed. 

Still, the only thing that really needed attention was the bite on her arm, and Eerie counted it as a win, considering what happened last time.

 

+++++

 

So maybe Jason felt like Suzie Su had been sitting on his head, but he was in a surprisingly good mood when he woke up.

That good mood may have had something to do with him rolling over, opening his eyes to the barest slits, and seeing Eerie lounging in a chair by his bed, computer in front of her, while wearing a tank top that was dangerously close to slipping off one shoulder and a pair of printed leggings that brought all attention to the way her legs seemed to go on forever, even tangled as they were right now. So maybe Eerie was a little squishy in the middle -- and Jason had zero complaints there -- but her legs were  _ perfection _ .

“Hey,” he said, but it came out as more of a croak.

Her head jerked up and a smile blossomed across her face. “Hey yourself,” she answered softly, getting up to offer him a bottle of water. “How ya feeling?” she asked as he sat up enough to sip. 

Throat feeling much less parched, he said, “Head hurts like hell, but other than that, I’m fine.” He took another sip of water. “What time is it?”

“A little before three. You’ve been asleep around twelve hours. How’s the pain on a one-to-ten scale?”

“Around a six.”

“That’s good. Last night you said it was an eight.”

“I… don’t remember that.”

She chuckled lightly. “I’m not surprised. You got your bell rung real good.”

Jason grunted in agreement and took another drink, shifting a little as Eerie eased down on the bed next to his legs. “Anybody else get hurt?”

“Roy needed some stitches on his leg, and I got some bruises.” She held her arms out from him to see the little blue spots all over her.

“How’d you even get those?”

She shrugged. “People kept grabbing at me. There’s not much padding on the arms of my uniform.”

“And you bruise so easy.”

“Yeah, that too.” Her eyes suddenly lit up. “Wait’ll you see the one I got from Ms. Vera.” She faced him square on and lifted her shirt up to just under her breasts. A long stripe of black and blue started at the bottom left of her ribcage and disappeared up between her breasts. Jason whistled low, reaching at to brush his thumb along it, and if maybe he caught a little boob in there, well, he had a concussion and she was the one who had decided not to wear a bra.

Eerie dropped her shirt, raising an eyebrow at him. “So you’re going to take it easy for a few days,” she said.

“Don’t you mean  _ we’re _ going to have to take it easy?”

She furrowed her brow at him. “I’m not the one with the concussion.”

“Maybe not,” he said lightly, “but you were the one who had a work-induce migraine not too long ago, and you were the one who puked after pushing yourself too hard. You need to take a break just as much as I do. Maybe more.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “The work at this point is entirely different. It’s just research.”

“Nope,” Jason said, “we are taking a vacation from all work for at least 72 hours. Three days.”

Eerie still looked skeptical. “And what exactly are we going to do for those three days?”

“Whatever the hell we want,” Jason said, smirking a little. “Go skinny dipping. Have sex on the beach. Put up a hammock in the shade. Figure out how to have sex in the hammock. I’ve even got some books around here somewhere if you want to read in between the sessions of hammock sex.”

Eerie was laughing. “Not sure that hammock sex is appropriate while you’re recuperating from a concussion.”

He shrugged. “You’ll just have to be on top.”

She rolled her eyes at him again and sighed. “Fine, 72 hour vacation.  _ But _ , I’m putting a 24 hour moratorium on all sexual activity.”

Jason groaned. “You might as well just chop my dick off,” he said dramatically.

“What?” she asked archly. “You got that I-didn’t-die horniness again?”

“More like the a-super-hot-girl-seems-to-like-me horniness.”

Even in the dim light, he could see her cheeks redden slightly, but her voice didn’t show it. “It’ll keep, then.”

They ended up in the hammock all afternoon, after Eerie had drowned herself in sunscreen and selected a book from Jason’s small collection. Mostly he slept, not yet able to shake the fatigue of the fight and the head injury, but dozing in the sun with Eerie’s skin against his own while she read Virginia Woolf was… nice. So maybe, Jason thought fuzzily as he watched a few gulls circling over the water, maybe they had skipped all the dating stuff and had gone straight to the go-away-together-for-the-weekend stage, but that was fine with him.


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some little bits of fluff and smut before everything goes to hell...
> 
> Also, this is the chapter that reveals the deepest levels of my unrepentant nerdiness.

“So how’s  _ Orlando _ ?” Jason asked, sitting down next to Eerie on the make-shift couch Roy had put together for their make-shift living room. He’d found her there, book and coffee in hand when he'd gotten out of the shower. 

“I've never had anything against Woolf,” she answered, tucking her finger into her place and looking over at him. “But this is definitely more up my alley than most of her work.”

“Oh yeah?” he said. “Why's that?”

“Well, it's kind of magical realism before magical realism was a thing.”

Jason looked at her blankly. “I shoulda known better than to start talking books with you,” he said. 

She laughed a little. “Dude, you are really giving me too many snob points right now. I like this book because all this weird fantasy shit happens and nobody seems to care. I'll take a book with spaceships over the Canon any day of the week.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah,” she went on lifting her mug a little like she wanted to hide behind it. “I mean, I got a degree in literature, and I liked a lot of the stuff I read, but there came a point where I just admitted to myself that I really like stories about aliens and magic and stuff like that.”

“Huh.” Jason scratched the back of his neck.

“What?” Eerie said, sounding both defensive and nervous.

“I just wouldn't have expected me to be the high-brow one.”

“Yeah, well, I blame the fact that I was raised by two people who devoted their entire lives to the study of John Milton for my questionable taste. It's a teenage rebellion that I didn't start until I was in my twenties and haven't decided to quit yet.”

“But you like the book?” Jason suddenly wished he had something else to offer, but collecting a lot of books hadn't really fit with his nomadic vigilante lifestyle. 

“Oh yeah!” she said, and enthusiasm washed over her face. “Orlando keeps swapping genders and lives, like, forever, and the writing is gorgeous.” She leaned over to kiss him on the cheek. “You'll have to read when I get done so we can talk about it.”

He snorted, looking at how far she'd made it through the novel. “Good thing you'll be done by the end of the day.”

 

+++++

 

He talked her into going down to the beach, even helped her spread sunscreen across the expanse of pale skin on her back that she couldn’t reach. The bikini that had been in the clothes Kori had picked out for her prior to Cherbourg was a deep blue, and as Eerie stretched out on her stomach on her towel, book in hand, Jason could see drops of sweat slide down her collarbone to disappear between her breasts. 

He swallowed, checked the time on his phone. 1:48 pm. Just a little while longer.

Another bead of sweat, this one starting just behind her ear and running  _ all the way down _ …

He opened his own paperback to give his eyes somewhere else to focus. 

“Your  _ Moby Dick _ looks well-loved,” Eerie commented, glancing over at him.

“What can I say?” he said. “The story of one crazy guy dragging a whole ship-load of people off with him on some impossible quest to avenge his lost parents, I mean, leg? It speaks to me.”

Eerie barked a laugh. “I guess that makes me Queequeg, watching all these weirdo vigilantes, I mean, white people do weirdo things.”

“You are the one with the magic.”

“I’ll need to work on my collection of shrunken heads though.”

“True.” There was a long pause, then Jason said. “I guess I always did kind of feel like the Ishmael to Dick’s Isaac.”

Eerie hummed in acknowledgement. “Actually, I think Tim is the Ishmael to Damian’s Isaac. The stand-in for the true son Bruce never thought he’d have.”

“Ouch,” Jason said, lifting an eyebrow at her. “Way to invalidate my feelings.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “If anything, the Bible story that best fits you is--”

“The prodigal son, I know,” he cut her off, rolling his eyes right back at her.

“Actually,” she answered archly, “I was going to say Judith.”

He rubbed a finger on his temple. “Sunday school was a long time ago. Also, I only went like three times.”

“The book of Judith got cut from the Protestant Bible anyway, so only us good Catholics know about it. It’s another one of those stories where the Israelites were about to get thrashed by some other kingdom, I think it was the Assyrians this time. Anyway, Judith was this widow who was really annoyed with all the men who were ready to just roll over and do nothing, so she went to the invading general’s camp, promised him to tell him all these secrets about the Israelites, then cut off his head one night when he was drunk. She takes his head back to her people, and the Assyrians turn tail.”

Jason blinked at her. “Really?” 

She shrugged. “I dunno, I guess you just seem to understand the impact of one well-placed dead guy. But I can pick another one if you want.” She made a show of thinking it over. “Oooh, how about the one where Noah gets super wasted and his son Ham goes in and sees him naked and he goes out to tell Shem and Japheth all about it because it’s  _ hilarious _ , but Shem and Japheth are all like, ‘Not cool dude,’ and they go cover Noah up without looking at him.”

Jason made a face at her. “And who am I supposed to be in this story?”

“Ham, of course. Because if you ever found Bruce passed out drunk, you’d totally be the one to draw a dick on his face, and Dick and Tim would be all like,’Dude, just let him sleep it off.’”

“And where’s Damian in this story?”

“Probably still on the damn ark rescuing animals.”

And Jason had to laugh, because, really she was right. He rolled over on his back and stretched all the way out. “So, you still sending B regular check-ins?” he asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

“I sent a ping when we got back to the island. If he wants details, he can grill Tim.”

“Do, uh,” Jason started, “do any of them know about… this? Us?”

“Well,” Eerie said, sounding a little sheepish, “I may have talked to Dick some…”

Jason groaned. “So yeah, everybody knows.”

“Yeah, I’d say that’s a safe bet.”

The thought made Jason tense and itchy. He’d gone out for a swim while Eerie stayed on the shore. Floating in the salt water, eyes closed against the glare of the sun, he let his mind wander, watching the thoughts go by as Ducra had taught him. Really, he’d ended up back in bed with his family again even before he’d gotten in bed with Eerie. He and Tim had been exchanging intel for a while, and Bruce enlisting him in his Batman Incorporated fuckery seemed almost natural. But that was work, and he could be a good little soldier. Getting involved with Eerie -- who was most certainly part of the family even if she liked to pretend she was the hired help -- meant getting involved personally. Emotionally.

If they lived normal lives, worked normal boring jobs, he’d be thinking that, yeah, this girl seems nice and the sex was good, so why not see where it went. Instead, they’d been… dating? together? whatever... for less than a week and he was already debating whether or not he was ready to commit to this being a long term thing. Because if he was going to put up with Golden Boy’s unbearably childish teasing and Demon Spawn’s death glares and possibly even getting some kind of  _ talk _ from Bruce, he’d better damn well make sure he thought it was worth it.

Watching these thoughts go by, he could almost hear Ducra laughing at him, was almost laughing at himself, because he’d already made his decision. Like usual, he’d gone with his gut from the very beginning and was just feeling annoyed with the consequences he’d already accepted.

He emerged from the water feeling much calmer and sat down, still dripping, next to Eerie. She smiled up at him, and he smiled back. “Sorry I dragged your family into this,” she said, reaching out to place a hand on his calf. 

He huffed good-naturedly. “It’s your family too. And besides, they’re too nosy to stay out of my business for any length of time.” Her thumb was stroking along his leg, and it was distracting as hell. He tapped his phone. 3:12 pm.  _ Oh thank God _ . “Well, we’ve made it 24 hours into our vacation,” he said, looking back down at her. 

She pulled her hand away, which he didn’t like, and settled herself on her elbows in a way that pushed her tits up, which he liked very much. “Oh?” was all she said though.

She was going to play coy, but Jason wasn’t in the mood for games. “Yes,” he said bluntly, shifting to place one hand on her other side and lean over her back. “Moratorium is over, and I wanna have sex with you.” He pressed his lips to a shoulder blade and didn’t miss the way she shivered.

She still managed to keep her tone even. “Do you, now?” she said, turning her head a little to watch him out of the corner of her eye.

“Well,” said Jason, moving his mouth to just behind her ear, “what I really want to lay you out here in the sun, completely naked, where anyone can see, and I want to taste every last inch of you before I pound your pussy so hard that you scare all the birds off this damn island from how loud you’re screaming my name.” That was definitely a whimper he heard, and he nipped at the shell of her ear. “Unfortunately, all the condoms are back in my room, so we’d better head that way.”

Her throat sounded very dry when she said, “Yeah, we should.”

 

+++++

 

“Okay, my turn,” Jason said over  _ The X-Files _ theme. The room was dark except for the light from Eerie’s laptop, illuminating Jason’s bare torso in all its scarred glory for her inspection as he focused on picking the next episode for their viewing pleasure.

So maybe she hadn’t been thrilled with the idea of taking a vacation, but now she was glad she’d let Jason talk her into it. It had given them a chance to discover  _ shared interests _ , like  _ The X-Files _ , and  _ shared interests  _ \-- besides crime-fighting -- often served as the basis for healthy relationships. And  _ God _ , did she want this to be a relationship.

But she wasn’t about to tell him that. Too soon. She’d only scare him away with her weirdness and predisposition to only get sexually involved with people that she  _ really, really  _ liked (which was why those one-night stands Dick had talked her into trying had been such disasters). No, it was better to nerd out over Mulder and Scully together. 

She watched him click on another episode title. “Oh no,” she moaned dramatically. “You would pick that one.”

“What?” he said, looking down at her. “You don’t like ‘Folie a Deux’?” 

“No, it’s a really good one,” Eerie amended quickly, “but it’s also scares the bejeezus out of me.”

He studied her, a grin slowly growing on his face. “Really? You’re worried about giant soul-sucking insects masquerading as corporate assholes and you agreed to work at Wayne Enterprises?”

She buried her face in his arm, mildly embarrassed. “I’ll watch it, but you better be prepared if I wake you up in the middle of the night asking you to prove your not a bug monster.”

He lifted his arm to wrap around her shoulders and pull her closer to him. “Hey, I’m a proven destroyer of evil things pretending to be humans. I’ll keep you safe from the bug monsters.”

She relaxed into his chest and reached out to start the episode. “I’m holding you to that.” Then she added as an afterthought, “And I might start taking you with me to the office.”

“No fucking way.”

 

+++++

 

Jason was reading  _ Orlando _ in the late afternoon sun, idly rubbing a hand up and down Eerie’s leg, when he caught her eyeing him from the other end of the hammock, peeking over the top of the next book she’d picked up, a collection of Poe stories.

“What?” he asked. 

She didn’t answer immediately, almost seemed to squirm under his scrutiny. Finally, putting the book down entirely, she said, “I would really like to suck your dick right now.”

He probably hadn’t gotten that hard that fast since he’d been thirteen, and for a moment all he could do was look at her, jaw slack, taking in the way she was biting her lip in nervousness. “I’d like that too,” he finally got out, “if that’s what you want.”

She wasted no time, dropping her book onto the sand and easing herself around to kneel between his legs, hammock rocking gently with her movements. Her face dropped and her lips brushed along his length, still covered by the pair of shorts he’d thrown on this morning. A deep sigh left him, but his eyes were glued to her thumbs pressing into the hollows of his hips as she continued to nuzzle lightly at his cock. She untied the laces of the trunks and maneuvered them until they rested just under his balls, hands barely brushing him, then she pressed soft kisses on the now-exposed flesh of his stomach, biting a little at his hip bone. He swallowed hard. “I, uh, I think there’s a condom in my pocket,” he said, hand ghosting over her hair as she sucked on a spot just below his navel. 

She sat up, looked at him. “You got anything you might give me?” she asked, thumbs still rubbing across his lower stomach.

“No,” he said. One side effect of the Lazarus Pit was that he was pretty much immune to most human diseases, STIs included. “What about you?”

“I’m clean,” she said, smiling. “So, just don’t come in my mouth, okay?”

She didn’t even wait for him to answer, licking a broad, flat stroke from the base of his cock to the tip, and he dropped his head back with a moan. She repeated the move, this time swirling her tongue around the tip before catching the whole head between her lips and pumping the shaft lightly with her hand. For a while, she just bobbed shallowly, saliva slowly spreading and everything becoming slick and warm and he was panting just a little when she pulled off with a  _ pop _ . She smeared her spit around with a hand, licking the head again, before slowly sliding her mouth down, down, down, almost to the base, and  _ fucking humming _ . 

His hips bucked without his permission, but she seemed to like it, moaning around his cock and hollowing out her cheeks as she slid back up until just tip was between her lips. She kept going like that, so slow and precise, until Jason was sure that any second he was going to lose it and start fucking her face. “Eerie,” he almost-whined, “stop fucking teasing.  _ Please _ .”

She smirked up at him, with his dick still resting against her lips. “Audible feedback helps,” she said. “I’ll take body language too.” 

He barked a little laugh, and when she lowered her mouth again, he placed a hand on the back of her head, trapping the short hair between his fingers and guiding her to the pace he liked. “That’s it,” he whispered, and she hummed in pleasure again. He groaned, the vibrations giving him goose-flesh. “My balls are feeling neglected,” he went on and quickly felt the weight of her hand cupping them, tugging ever so slightly. “Yesss,” he hissed, “just like that.” He started to thrust shallowly and she moaned again, a long drawn-out sound that paused when she drew a breath in through her nose, only to continue. “God, look at you.” He watched her through lidded eyes, breasts heaving as she worked him. “You love sucking cock, don’t you?” The moan moved up to a whine and he pushed her to increase the pace. “Suck a little harder, baby,” he coaxed, feeling the heat build when her mouth and hand tightened around him. “That’s it.” His head flew back and he let himself thrust a little deeper with his hips until he was right on the edge. He pulled her head back, but her hands kept stroking, even harder than before, and with a low, deep groan, hot sticky streaks of cum coated his stomach and chest. 

Jason’s whole body went limp and he was barely aware of Eerie untangling herself from him until she was swiping at his stomach with one of the towels they’d brought out with them, standing over him and smiling in a self-satisfied way. He grinned back, taking the towel from her to finish cleaning up the mess, then pulling her towards him for a kiss. He didn’t hesitate to plunge his tongue in, tasting himself in her mouth. “I would really like to return the favor,” he said when they broke apart, clambering out of the hammock -- after tucking himself back in his shorts -- and pushing Eerie gently to sit back, leaving her legs dangling over the side.

“Yeah, about that…” she said, hands coming up to keep him at arm’s length where he was kneeling on the sand. He waited for her to go on, letting one hand rub up and down the outside of her calf. “I, um, I  _ like _ oral,” she said, not looking him in the eye as she said it, “but I don’t usually orgasm from just that, so I don’t want you to be down there thinking,  _ Holy shit how long do I have to do this? _ ” 

Jason chuckled. “You’re not going to fake it to keep from hurting my feelings?”

“You were the one who was all like, ‘Talking about sex makes it better’,” she huffed, leaning back. 

He kissed the inside of her thigh in apology. “You’re right,” he agreed. “So, what about mouth and fingers?”

“Much higher success rate.”

When he glanced up, though, she still looked a little tense, so as he licked and kissed and nibbled his way closer to her cunt, he said, “Just relax, no pressure, okay?” He grinned at her. “If I can’t get you off, I’d love it if you would provide me with a demonstration of how you do it.”

She smiled at him shyly, and her limbs seemed to lose some of their tautness as he tugged the bikini bottoms down and positioned her feet right next to her ass, giving him easy access to a pussy that was already glistening with slick. He kissed around it, inhaling deeply. “Just lay your head back and close your eyes and enjoy yourself, okay?” 

He didn’t make another move until she answered with a small, “okay.” Then he spread her outer labia and ran his tongue up in a long, flat stroke. Eerie sighed heavily above him, so he did it again. She tasted fucking fantastic, salt and vinegar, and he quickly lost himself lapping at her folds. When he started to hear the familiar whimper -- the little sound she made when she was too into what was happening to be self-conscious -- he pulled back to say, “You want a finger now?” 

“Yes,” she gasped, “please.”

Jason started with his middle finger, sliding it in and out slowly, entranced by watching the digit disappear inside of her and the sounds that she made as it did. He felt for the rough spot at the front and stroked it, listening to her breathing grow more ragged. When it did, he hummed thoughtfully. “I think you need another,” he said, happy to tease her a little after she’d been such a tease to him. “What do you think?”

“Yeah,” she breathed, “another.”

His index finger joined the other, but he kept the same steady pace. He used his other hand to spread her folds until he could see the pearl of her clit and flick his tongue over it. “Fuck!” she bit out, grinding against him and he smiled as he swiped at the bud again before circling it with just the tip of his tongue. Eerie pressed harder against him and he responded by speeding up his fingers and flattening his tongue over her clit so she could bear down on him. A few seconds later, she stopped breathing entirely, then the walls of her vagina clenched around his fingers and a long moan poured out of her as she came. He pulled his mouth away, but continued to pump with his fingers through the aftershocks, wiping his damp cheeks against her thighs and watching her chest rise and fall.

“Well,” he said, sliding his fingers out and wiping them on his shorts and mirroring the slap-happy grin that was plastered across Eerie’s face, “we can check ‘hammock sex’ off our vacation to-do list.”

 

+++++

 

“I can’t believe you haven’t seen  _ The Thing _ ,” Jason said as he set up the larger monitor in the living room to project the feed from Eerie’s laptop. “It’s, like, a sci-fi horror masterpiece.”

“Yeah, well, somewhere along the way I ended up spending a lot of time with a kid who only wants to watch Kurosawa films and documentaries,” Eerie countered. “Also, if we’re going to watch one of your favorite 80s films, we have to follow it up with one of mine.”

“That’s fair.”

“ _ Robocop _ .”

Jason turned to stare at her. “Are you serious? That movie’s a piece of shit!”

Eerie lowered her head to glare at him and raised a finger. “It may be ridiculously campy, but it has a lot to say about the repercussions of privatizing law enforcement.”

Jason threw his hands up. “Fine. I guess I haven’t seen it since I was like eight anyway.”

Roy popped around the corner right as the movie was starting. “Oooh,  _ The Thing _ !” he said. “Pause it and let me get Kori. She loves bitching about humans’ ideas about aliens.”

 

+++++

 

_ Are you working? _

Eerie snorted at the message. Really, she was surprised it had taken this long for Damian to contact her; he must have been really miffed when she sent him back to Gotham.  _ Taking a little R&R _ , she sent back to him. 

They were in the last few hours of their self-imposed three day hiatus, back in the hammock that had basically been their home. She was glad they had taken a break, but she’d never been good at being this idle for long; she’d usually enjoyed school breaks for approximately one week before wanting to ram her head into a wall. But at least Jason had also taken it easy, given himself time to heal before they were back out doing dangerous things again.

He was across from her, nose in  _ Orlando _ again, stroking her shin distractedly. He did that a lot, placing a hand on whatever part of her that was closest to him while he was focused on something else, like he needed to make sure she didn’t wander away without him realizing. It gave her the damn butterflies.

Her phone buzzed again, this time alerting her to a video call.  _ This should be good _ , Eerie thought, swiping the screen to accept. “Hey, Damian,” she said. 

Jason’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline. 

The boy on the other end was all business. “As you are not currently putting yourself to any good use, you have time to actually do the job that Father is paying your for,” Damian said. “I have read the selections you assigned and I have to say that it was more asinine that your usual requests.”

“You do realize that I’m taking unpaid vacation time right now,” Eerie countered, raising an eyebrow of her own at Damian’s tone. “Any act of tutoring would be charity on my part.”

“ _ Tt _ , Father pays you far above your worth. You can afford a few unpaid hours.” Then Damian’s eyes narrowed. “Is Todd with you?”

“What makes you say that?”

“I can see his foot.”

“That could be anybody’s foot. Maybe I’ve gotten friendly with the pool boy at the resort I’m staying at.”

Damian rolled his eyes. “Only an inbred like Todd could have toenails that disgusting.”

She glanced up just long enough to see the stormy look that came over Jason’s face, and she patted his leg in admonition. “Good thing I don’t have a foot fetish, then, or else I’d have been wasting my time.”

Had Damian been a normal kid, he would have fake-barfed. But he was Damian, so he just glared daggers. And katanas. And possibly even a broadsword.

“So, you didn’t like Christine de Pizan?” Eerie asked, steering the conversation back to Damian’s original reason for calling.

“I can only assume that you think I’m an absolute idiot if you think I need convincing of the relative merits of women,” Damian complained. “Do you forget who my mother is?”

Eerie deliberately did not look at Jason, not wanting to see his line to Talia twitch and coil in guilt, anger, and a weird sense of shame. She wondered if he knew that she knew that he’d slept with Damian’s mom. 

“Fine, you don’t need convincing,” she said, “so let’s talk about how  _ The Book _ and  _ The Treasure _ are structured in relation to contemporary works.”

They talked for almost an hour, an hour of her trying to not get off-track while Jason made faces at her in response to whatever Damian was saying. Damian, for his own part, liberally scattered insults to his adopted brother throughout his diatribe about how awful Christine’s writing was. Eerie finally pulled him up short. “Okay,” she said, “so you think Christine is encouraging women to be weak because she’s forefronting Christian morals rather than encouraging an outright revolt, I get that. But setting that aside for the moment, since it was incredibly impractical to assume that women could stage some kind of armed revolt in the Middle Ages, don’t you think that Christine is teaching women Burke’s notion of identification as a rhetorical tool?”

Damian started to open his mouth, then snapped it shut as he took time to actually think, and Eerie knew she had won. She glanced up at Jason to find him wide-eyed in the silence. “Is he dead?” he mouthed to her.

Eerie just smiled and waited for Damian to work out his thoughts. He eventually said, taking his time, “Burke said that to persuade a man you must first speak his language. And to an extent, Christine is extolling women to behave and speak in ways that men of the time expected women of the time to speak and behave in order to be consider moral and upright.”

“Contributing to their ethos,” Eerie supplied.

“Yes, ethos. But acting in that way only furthers their own oppression. It only further persuades men that they should only listen to women who behave.” Damian’s brow furrowed. “So why would a woman who seems to want something different continue to encourage this behavior?”

“Haven’t you ever played the part of a stereotypical twelve-year-old to get what you want?” Eerie asked. “Or any part really?” She’d learned about his acting lessons early on, but had agreed to help him keep Bruce and Alfred in the dark, lest they misinterpret the boy’s intent.

Damian scoffed. “But only to strangers. Those who know me, who I rely on, know that I am not a typical twelve-year-old. These princesses would be playing these parts to the same people day in and day out. To their own husbands and fathers and sons!”

“And maybe this is a moment where we need to remember our privilege backpack.” 

Jason looked like he might have an aneurysm from holding in his laughter, but Damian just said, “Ah.”

“So I think it’s time for an essay assignment,” Eerie went on. Damian groaned loudly. “Nope, you haven’t had one in months, and you know how important it is for me to have proof that I’m teaching you something if I want to keep my job.”

“Fine. What is it this time?”

Eerie lined up her thoughts. “For the next week or two, I want you to pay attention to the performances of those around you who are not white men. I want you to consider the ways in which their performances are rhetorical actions, designed to persuade others. Keep a detailed account of the data you collect.  _ Then _ , I want fifteen pages on what you notice about the performances of marginalized people in relation to this question you’ve posed yourself: Why continue performances that reinscribe oppression? Draw from whatever sources you deem necessary, but I will expect both Christine and Burke to be referenced.”

Damian raised an eyebrow at her. “Are we excluding sexuality this time?”

Eerie considered the question. “Yes, I think we will, since sexuality is not as easily or immediately identified as gender and race.”

“And the next reading?”

“Two essays. Audre Lourde’s ‘The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House,’ and Gayatri Spivak’s ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’. I’ll text you publication information.”

“And I suppose I’ll have to track you down again when I am finished.” 

It was not a question, but Eerie answered any way. “Send me the essay when you’re done, and we’ll set up a time to talk.”

“Fine, but I expect in-person instruction this time,” Damian pronounced. “If I wanted to talk to a computer, I would sign up for online classes at the dismal community college downtown.”

“We’ll see.”

After she ended the call, Eerie let her head flop back as she sighed heavily. “Is that what all your lessons are like?” Jason asked, sounding a little awed.

“More or less,” she answered, rolling her neck around with her eyes still closed. “He was a little more combative this time than usual. I think he’s trying to get back at me for ruining utilitarianism for him.”

“And you  _ like  _ tutoring him?”

She smiled. “Yeah. I mean, he’s a smart kid, and when you can get him to shut up long enough to actually think, he can be quite insightful.” 

She looked up in the silence that followed to see Jason staring at her like she was absolutely mental. “You are doing the Lord’s work,” he said, almost sounding sincere.

 

+++++

 

Eerie got back to work, putting Omni’s overpowered networks to the question of which of the places on her original list of possible Untitled locations would be most likely to bear fruitful results, while Jason went through the process of cleaning his guns sitting on the floor at her feet.

Then Jason got an encrypted call that made his line to Bruce flare and twist, and Eerie looked away as they talked. It was a short conversation, but afterwards, Jason said with a strained look in his eye, “I have to go back to Gotham. I guess Talia’s making her move.”

“Do you want me to come with you?” she asked immediately. 

“No. Stay here. Research.” He grinned at her, but it was too deliberate to reach his eyes. “Give me some good news to come home to.”

Eerie watched him as he reassembled the pistol in front of him, watched as the thread connecting him to Talia thickened with anger, then thinned out when his mind turned to Bruce and his brothers. Those lines went soft with what Eerie would call a kind of resentful affection if she had to put a name to it. “So we both know Dickie-bird is going to rag me to no end about us,” he said, keeping his eyes on his work. He was moving slowly on purpose, Eerie was sure. “And I’ve resigned myself to B feeling like he has a responsibility to give the sex talk he never got around to before I died. But if they push me on it, what should I tell them about us?”

Eerie blinked. “Are we having the ‘what are we?’ talk?” she asked after a moment.

He snorted. “Moving real fast, I know, but…” he shrugged before bringing his gaze up to hers. “Our lives are too weird for us to fuck around with what we want. And I want you.”

She was completely solemn in her answer. “I want you too.”

This time his grin was real. “Good. I’m gonna tell all those assholes you’re my girl.”


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter draws extensively from the final few issues of Batman Incorporated, including some direct quotes and descriptions of panels. I haven't marked these quotes in any particular way because, well, I don't want to take readers out of the story, but, just so it's clear, I'm borrowing heavily.
> 
> Ha, like I wasn't borrowing heavily before...

The call came through encrypted, from an unknown number, and Eerie was both relieved and anxious. It had been over 24 hours since she'd heard from Jason -- a warning that the Demon Spawn was expanding his menagerie and a photo of a small black and white kitten. 

But it was Tim on the line when she answered. “Hey, Eerie,” he said, sounding tired and with a little hitch in his voice that she didn't like. 

“Tim! What's going on? We saw about Knight on the news, what the hell is happening?”

Tim took a shaky breath and Eerie knew that the news was bad, that Tim was calling because no one else could. “Damian…” he started. “Damian’s dead.”

_ Oh. _

“Oh,” she said, sinking back down onto the bed. 

“Jason's MIA,” Tim went on. “We think Talia got him. We're tracking down a lead right now, but… you should probably come home,” he finished. 

“Yeah,” she said. 

“I don't think commercial airlines are going to be open much longer; Talia’s made demands. Do you have another way into the city?”

“Yeah.” She swallowed hard, cleared her throat. “Yeah, I'll be there in a couple of hours.”

“Let me know when you get in.”

“Yeah.”

Without giving herself time to think, she stalked through the halls of the crashed cruiser until she was standing outside Roy and Kori’s door. Ignoring the noises on the other side, she began pounding with the flat of her palm, a steady rhythm that didn’t stop until Roy stood before, sheet wrapped around his waist and face flushed. “Jesus, Eerie, what the fuck’s going on?” he gasped.

“I need a ride to Gotham,” she said shortly, fixing him with a look she’d learned from Damian --  _ Damian! _ \-- the one that said that she was so sure he would do what she wanted that she wasn’t even prepping for a fight.

Roy’s face immediately dropped into dead seriousness. “What’s wrong?”

She waved a hand and started back down the hallway. “Shit’s hit the fan. I need to go home.”

By the time she had her bag packed, Roy was waiting for her on the ship, running through Omni’s preflight checks. “Did you hear from Jay?” he asked as they lifted off the beach and he oriented the ship in the setting sun. 

“Red Robin contacted me,” she said distantly. “Jason is MIA.”  _ And Damian is… _

“Shit, I’ll call Kori,” Roy exclaimed. “We can help track him down--”

“No,” she said firmly, hands squeezing her thighs to keep them from shaking. “It’s a personal thing. A family thing. Jason wouldn’t want you and Kori tangled up in it.”

For a while they flew in silence, then Roy asked, “Jay isn’t scrapping with Batman again, is he? Cuz I told him I wouldn’t tolerate that shit from him anymore.”

“No. Kind of the opposite, actually.” Eerie snorted. “Jay’s helping take down B’s baby mama.”

Roy’s eyes got wide. “Little D’s mom is in town?” 

Eerie didn’t answer him that time, just stared out the front view and drew her legs up to her chest. Roy’s hands tapped spastically on the controls, and it rankled her senses, but she didn’t want to risk saying something about it for fear of what might come out when she opened her mouth.  _ Damian can’t be dead _ , she thought.  _ Talia wouldn’t dare. It’s gotta be a trick, or maybe they need for Talia to believe he’s dead, so they’re staging this whole thing and I’m just not in on it yet. Actually, calling me to propagate the news is a smart move, since I’ll know as soon as I see any of them that he’s alive and no one will have to explain it. _

“Eerie,” Roy interrupted her thoughts, “I, uh, I think you might be projecting.”

She glanced over at her friend. His hands were still jittering and his jaw was tight, much tighter than she’d ever seen it before. 

“Sorry,” she said, fumbling around for her bag, hoping that she had a sedative in there somewhere. Before she could begin searching in earnest, Roy’s held a hypo out to her. “I left the one you gave me in the ship,” he explained, “just in case.” He cleared his throat, carefully kept his eyes on the console. “And, uh, don’t worry about it too much. I know you can’t really help it.”

He continued to not look at her as she stuck the needle in her thigh through her leggings and felt it puncture the flesh, but she saw him scratch idly at the inside of his elbow. The sedative hit pretty fast, and she felt herself sinking back into the seat before turning to watch Roy. “Better?” she asked when his face didn't look so tight. 

“Yeah,” he said. “You okay?”

Eerie thought if she tried to answer, she’d start to cry, so she kept her lips pressed together and just hummed noncommittally. The sedative made her mind softer, slower, so that the anxiety and fear faded back, but that left only the sadness.  _ Damian is… And Jason is… _

She half-dozed during the flight, and Roy shook her knee as they approached Gotham airspace. “Where exactly am I taking you?”

“I guess just drop me behind the manor,” she said, struggling to come back to full awareness. 

Roy glanced her way nervously, a ripple of paranoia spreading out from him, but in her drugged haze, Eerie couldn't see the lines clearly. “You sure?” he asked. 

“Yeah, just let me jump out and get going,” Eerie answered, collecting her backpack and getting up to move back to the hatch. 

“And if you need something, you'll call, right?” he asked, maneuvering the craft over the shoreline to make a clean descent among the trees. 

“Yeah.” Eerie felt them dropping and hit the hatch control. “I'll let you know when we find him. Thanks, Roy.”

She fell the last five feet or so onto the manicured lawn and kept ducked down as the invisible space ship lifted back up. The air was very quiet after Roy had departed, and the house was solemnly dark. 

Out of her periphery, Eerie noticed a new shadow in the family cemetery, refused to inspect it further. 

Inside the house was just as quiet. She didn't bother to call out, knowing that if anyone were here, they'd come find her. She went straight to the cave, where Titus bounded up to her, followed by the kitten from Jason’s picture, who clearly still wanted to keep his distance even with the dog's vote of confidence. Patting Titus’s large, flat head as he walked beside her, Eerie marched up to the main console and, after taking a deep breath to center herself, pulled on the headset that sat there waiting. 

“This is Kairos, on line from the Cave,” she said, trying not to think about why Alfred wasn't manning the monitors. “Can I get a check-in for all agents in the field?”

“Kairos,” Dick breathed in her ear, sounding relieved. In times of crisis, Dick always wanted everyone within arm's reach. “You got in alright?”

“Yeah, Nightwing. I'm not fit for fieldwork at the moment, but I can man the comms at least.” She pecked at the keys in front of her, pulling up a map of Gotham and zeroing in on Nightwing’s position. “What's your sitrep?”

“Red Robin and I are getting ready to pick up a possible information source and dangle him over the edge of a tall building.”

“Sounds fun. Any other agents hearing me?”

“This is Knight,” a woman's voice said with a hard British accent. “Don't believe we've met, Kairos.”

“Yeah, I'm not on the Batman Inc. roster,” she explained, digging through the files to find that she was probably speaking to the late Knight’s associate, Squire. “But you could say I've got a personal investment.”

“This is Dark Ranger,” another voice, male and Australian this time, added. “Me and Knight are still following Wingman’s piss trail.”

“Uh, come again?”

“Bloke peed his pants when he got knocked out,” Dark Ranger explained.

“And Wingman is Red Hood’s current alias?” she clarified.

“Yeah,” Nightwing confirmed. “Not to be confused with  _ the  _ Hood, who is currently also missing.”

“And what about Batman?” she asked. 

“He’s…” Red Robin hedged, “he's gone solo right now.” Meaning:  _ He’s out doing something without telling anyone else what his plan is.  _

“Right,” Kairos said, deciding that getting B back on comms was a priority. “Any other players right now?”

“Batgirl, Batwoman, and the Birds are laying low and trying to keep some sense of law and order,” Red explained. 

“Okay, everybody, I'd like check-ins on every half hour and hour,” she said, keeping with standard operating procedure for large scale maneuvers. “I'll keep an ear to the police scanner and social media feeds and be here if you need me.”

She pulled up the social media crawler Oracle had designed for them on one side of the screen and set her headset to receive GCPD radio, then began working through Batman’s most frequently used channels to try to contact him. When she had no luck, she went to feed the animals, finding half a can of chicken in the fridge for the kitten and grabbing some water for herself. At the pre-determined time, Red Robin and Knight checked in, but no one was particularly chatty. No one was in the mood. 

Eerie knew that the calmness she was feeling as she sat in the big chair in front of the console was the result of the drugs, but she was still kind of surprised at how easy it was to just watch the screen and be numb when her -- well, what was Damian to her? Her student, sure, but when Bruce had disappeared, she and Dick had taken responsibility for the kid, become surrogate parents in a way. While Dick had always been the big brother, Eerie wasn't exactly the older sister, especially since she'd barely been in their weird little family any longer than Damian. 

And now the kid was dead, and maybe Jason was too, or even worse if Talia had gotten her claws in him again.

She watched these thoughts swirl sluggishly, limbs feeling heavy and mind moving much slower than she would like. Eventually, a call came over the GCPD band that pulled her away from her misery: a disturbance at the home of Kirk Langstrom and a possible Batman sighting. She keyed into Nightwing’s and Red Robin’s comms. “GCPD is investigating at Langstrom’s house. It sounds like B could be there.”

“We're busy right now,” Red answered, “but we can make that our next stop.”

“I'll keep you posted,” she said. 

Dark Ranger reported that their hunt had slowed, but they were still in pursuit. Eerie tapped her fingers anxiously on the console, clinging to the GCPD officers on the scene. The next report was that they had engaged the Batman but he had escaped, and they were bringing Langstrom in for questioning. 

“B has taken off,” she relayed to Red.

Before the next check-in, though, the Batmobile roared into the Cave, hovering for a moment before setting down on the landing pad. Batman climbed out, looked up sharply when she called his name. “You're back,” he said, pausing only a split second before continuing to the lab area.

Eerie followed him. “Yeah, you'd know that if you turned your damn radio on.”

He didn't even grunt at her, just started pulling materials, including a syringe, out of the drawers.

“So what's the plan here?”

“I'm going after the man who killed my son.”

It was said in a dead tone, but the voice was so raw that Eerie was glad the threads were muted; she was having a hard enough time looking at the man as it was.

“Okay,” she said. “What can I do?”

“Stay out of my way.” A beat as he unwrapped the needle and inserted the tip in a vial he pulled from his belt. “Keep Dick and Tim out of my way too.”

“And your other son?” Eerie bit out before she caught herself. “You just gonna leave him to fend for himself?”

Batman’s shoulders hunched slightly, and she heard him take a breath. “If Talia has him, we'll have to go through Heretic anyway. Two birds…” He trailed off as he realized the painful aptness of the idiom.

Hypo prepped, Batman pulled down his cowl and started to press it to his neck. Eerie’s hand shot up to stop him. “Whoa there! What's in the needle?”

He turned to look down at her, eyes alert but uninterested. “A cure for the Manbat serum. Airborne and communicable to bats.”

“And this is part of your plan?”

“Yes.”

Eerie studied him for a moment, then sighed. “Here, at least let me do it.”

He hesitated, then handed over the syringe. She pressed at the flesh on his throat, found the spot she wanted, and smoothly inserted the needle. “If you get yourself fucked up, Dick is going to kill me.”

“Dick knows you couldn't stop me.” He pulled his cowl back over his face, got back in the Batmobile, and left.

Batcow lowed at her from her corner of the Cave. “Yeah,” she agreed, “humans are weird, aren’t they?”

 

+++++

 

After they pried one of his molars out without so much as a shot of whiskey for the pain, Jason took some pleasure in watching new girl Knight and Dark Ranger wipe the floor with the yellow catsuit brigade, even if he had already come to the conclusion that they weren’t actually the enemy here. At least not right now.

It was also kind of nice that someone had actually come for him. Granted, it would have been nicer if it had been his so-called brothers, but apparently they couldn’t be fucking bothered.

Except Nightwing and Red Robin were waiting outside the warehouse when he, Knight, and Dark Ranger started to leave, looking ready for a fight. “Guys,” he said, raising his hands, “I can explain.”

“This had better be good,” Nightwing said, body misleadingly loose as he strode toward the door with its line of yellow catsuit skull ladies spilling out. “Talia’s getting ready to pull the plug on Gotham--”

“Not gonna happen,” Wingman interjected, helmet settled back in place. “But hey,” he snarked, “thanks for the prompt rescue. They only tore out one tooth without anesthetic.”

As Wingman worked the kinks out of his neck and shoulders, the Headmistress gave her little spiel, finishing with, “Right now we need Batman Incorporated to shut down the Oroboro Ring.”

“Yeah, we were on that until you kidnapping one of our agents got us sidetracked,” Red said, eyeing the catsuits with obvious dislike. Wingman was reminded of why this was the member of his family that made him want to puke the least.

Nightwing, on the other hand, was distracted. “I know you, don’t I?” he asked the Headmistress, studying her face.

She smiled at him. “How you’ve grown. But things never change… and guess what? Batman needs you.”

Wingman rolled his eyes. “Can we regroup somewhere where I haven’t recently been held against my will and tortured?” he asked pointedly. 

That place ended up being a rooftop a few blocks away. “Knight, Ranger, give us a minute,” Nightwing ordered. “And check in with Kairos, let her know we got Wingman.”

Wingman’s head jerked around. “Kairos is in Gotham?”

Nightwing led him over to the opposite side of the roof as Red Robin explained, “I called her in.”

“Why the fuck would you do that?” Wingman snarled. “She needs to stay out of this.”

Nightwing turned on him, and Wingman was suddenly very aware of how closely there were all standing, a tight little circle with heads tucked together. “Robin,” Nightwing started, then took a breath. “Robin is dead.”

Wingman’s teeth clenched. “Not funny, asshole.”

Red was rubbing at his eyes in a way that could have just been exhaustion. “It was Heretic. Robin left the Cave to rescue B and Heretic got him. And then you were missing on top of that and we were sure that Talia had gotten you too… so I called Kairos to come home.”

Wingman looked between the two of them, taking in Nightwing’s slumped shoulders and the way that Red didn’t want to look at anyone. “Fuck,” he whispered sharply. 

“Hey Nightwing,” Knight called, interrupting the family meeting. “Kairos says Batman is in Midtown fighting Heretic. We need to get there now.”

Nightwing was immediately back in control. “Red, Wingman, Ranger, get to Bat Cave East and get that trigger disarmed,” he ordered, already on the move. “Knight and I will assist B in Midtown. Kairos will coordinate.”

Suddenly remembering he had comms again, Wingman opened the common channel to hear Kairos’s voice giving coordinates. When she had finished relaying the intel to Nightwing, he said, “This is Wingman checking in. Red Robin, Ranger, and I are en route to Cave East.”

“Wingman,” she sighed. “Good to hear you.” 

“Outlaw channel?” he asked as he followed Red to where transport was waiting.

Once they’d both changed frequency, Wingman said, “Christ, Kai, I’m so sorry they dragged you back here.”

“No, it’s fine. I need to be here. I need--” her voice broke. “Shit, Hood,” she said, “I’m dosed to the gills right now.”

“It’s okay, Kai,” he soothed. “Somebody’s gotta keep these assholes in line, and tonight it’s you.”

“And Robin’s gone, and you were missing, and I didn’t know what I’d do if you died too and--”

“Kai,” he said forcefully, “I need you to be calm, okay? Right now, we’ve got to finish this job. Like fucking bosses, yeah?”

He heard her take a deep breath. “Yeah, like fucking bosses.”

“Alright,” he said, confident that she’d keep it together. “I’ll let you know when we get to Cave East.”

 

+++++

 

Eerie listened to the reports come in, relayed intel as needed. The whole time, Batman stayed off the comms, his team trying to manage some kind of plan around him. Heretic went down, and as he and Knight tried to do something about the general insanity in the streets, Nightwing reported that a helicopter left the WE building headed in the direction of the manor. Barely a minute after that, GCPD started chattering about a large explosion at that same location, undoubtedly a parting gift. By the time she heard the roar from the Batmobile, Kairos had suited up and backed herself deeply into the shadows. “B is back in the Cave,” she whispered into her cowl as the man in question walked, wearily, to stand in front of the console, facing the stairs up to the manor. She checked her HUD. “Sensors show one individual in the manor.”

Red Robin responded. “Wingman is on his way with the trigger, but he’s worried about Spyral beating him there. Ranger and I are moving to Knight and Nightwing’s position.” There was a pause, then he said. “Are you safe?”

“I guess we’ll find out,” she answered, spying a silhouette in the open doorway. “She’s here.”

The fight was brutal, but rather than focus on the exchange of strikes and blows, Kairos focused on Talia’s threads. The sedative had worn off enough to make things a bit more clear, but what she could see was more impressionistic than anything. Her recording would just be a muttered litany of names and the occasional emotional overtone, the best she could do under the circumstances -- really the only thing she could do under the circumstances, considering that any intervention on her part would end up with Talia’s sword through her gut.

Her study was cut off when both blades shattered, spraying shards across both combatants. “ _ My _ parents died, too,” Talia said. “My father over and over again.” She offered it up as though that explained the last few years of their shared lives. Then, almost as an afterthought, she added, “I used a new poison on the blade. You have ten minutes to live.”

“Of course,” Batman sighed. “I’m sorry I couldn’t love you the way you wanted me to, Talia. You’re right. You’re too big for me to fight.” He started to list to one side, then the other, effects of the poison, Kairos assumed.  _ Shitshitshit _ , she thought, glancing at the HUD to check the sensors in the manor, then scan the cameras in the tunnels, just in time to spot the blur of a bike. 

“I can’t fight you,” Batman said, collapsing on one knee, “so what is it you…you really… you really want?” He ended face first on the floor. 

Talia watched the slow descent. “You chose to make war,” she said. “I gave you an unbeatable villain. I did all this, for  _ you _ , in my spare time.” When Batman only grunted in response, she took three careful steps to stand over him. “You’ll never understand, will you? Beg me for your antidote.”

By now, Kairos could hear the whine of the motorcycle approaching. Apparently, Talia could too. “Who can save you now that Robin’s dead again? I wonder...” 

Wingman skidded onto the Cave’s main platform with a shower of sparks. “Don’t kill him!” he yelled, holding up the trigger so Talia could see it. “Don’t kill him! They gave me what you want! In return for Batman’s life, remember?”

Batman raised his head as Wingman dismounted, and Kairos could see only too clearly the disappointed and betrayal on the line connecting father to adopted son. “Jason…” he said weakly, “no… not you… I trusted you.” One gloved hand reached out in supplication, only to fall again. “Don’t do this… don’t let her win…”

But Wingman was too busy with Talia. “I’m sorry about the kid,” he said as Talia flicked open a secret compartment in the hilt of her sword. “We’d have made great partners.” A small vial fell out into a disarmingly dainty palm. “Give him the antidote, Talia -- and the trigger’s yours.”

Kairos held her breath, a little surprised that Talia was going to be tricked so easily, but then the other woman dropped the vial on Batman’s head before snatching the trigger box out of Wingman’s hand with an arrogant smile. “He owes his life to you,” she said. “I hope he lives long enough to thank you for it.”

But Kairos missed the rest of the exchange as her HUD alerted her to another presence moving through the manor, at least for a moment, then it seemed to blip out of existence. While Batman got back to his feet, she fiddled with her electronics, trying to identify what the sensors had just picked up and using one lens to switch through camera feeds while she kept the other eye on the scene below her.

Then a shot rang out, and Wingman was pulling her out of her hiding spot and up the stairs to the manor, and her head felt very strange for a moment, and then she was standing in the kitchen, pulled tight to Wingman’s chest and she realized she was sobbing while he patted her hair under her hood. “ _ Fuck _ ,” she spat. “This isn’t fucking happening.”

“I know,” he soothed, “I know. It’s complete bullshit.”

Slowly she reined herself back in, because the job wasn’t done yet. Stepping back, she started to peel her mask from her face so that she could at least wipe the tears away. “Okay,” she said, taking a breath, “okay. First thing, we gotta sedate Bruce.”

Jason had pulled off his helmet. “Then we gotta make sure everybody else gets home tonight.”

“Yeah,” Eerie agreed, looking up at him. “You ready for this?”

He nodded and grabbed her hand as they walked back to the grandfather clock and the scene that awaited them below.

Bruce was still cradling Talia’s body and didn’t even bother to look up, which made it relatively easy to slide a needle in his neck for the second time tonight. He looked up blearily at her, then Jason grabbed one of his arms and hauled him to his feet. “C’mon, Bats,” he said, “let’s get you in bed. Eerie’ll take care of Talia.”

Bruce offered only a modicum of resistance as Jason helped him up the stairs, and Eerie keyed her comms back on. “This is Kairos at the Cave,” she said. “I need immediate sitrep reports from all agents in Gotham.”

“We’re all still in Midtown,” Nightwing said, “but things are starting to slow down. Looks like Talia only planned for her mind control to last until the big boom.”

Eerie breathed a sigh of relief. Continuing to quell a revolt of insane people wasn’t really something the team seemed up to right now.

“What’s your situation there?” Red Robin cut in.

“Talia’s dead,” she said simply. “I’m guessing Spyral, but…” She squinted as she tried to remember what she had seen and heard. “There’s a point where things get murky and that’s the part where Talia got shot.” She gave her head a shake; it wasn’t important now. “Wingman is here with me dealing with the aftermath.”

“And B?” Nightwing asked.

“He’s… resting.”

“Alright, Kai,” he went on. “We’ll finish up here, get Knight and Ranger settled at Cave East, and then come home, okay?”

“Sounds good, N,” she said. “We’ll leave the light on.”

And she turned around to Talia’s body on the ground, waiting for her.


	25. Chapter 25

When Jason came back down into the Cave, Talia’s body had been wrapped in a white sheet, though a little blood was starting to seep through. Eerie was at the main console, headset on, watching the feed from a closed circuit camera at what looked like Baker and 14th, not far from WE. The GCPD was there with the armored vans they used for transporting dangerous or high-risk criminals with a contingent of armed guards, but this time they were loading them with dozens of un- or semi-conscious rioters. “Ranger and Knight are headed back to Cave East for medical,” Eerie said in a dull tone. “Red Robin and Nightwing are doing one last sweep around the area to make sure there’s nothing GCPD can’t handle, then they’re on their way back here.” She looked up at him as he snaked an arm around her waist. “I don’t suppose you have any idea where Alfred is?”

“Tim said B sent him on vacation,” Jason answered. “Dunno why, though.”

Eerie hummed in response. “I better set the house phone for forward to mine, then, cause Bruce Wayne is going to be getting some calls.” Then she cursed suddenly. “I forgot. You need to call Roy, let him know you’re fine.”

Jason snorted. “Yeah, or else he’ll be ringing the fucking doorbell in a few days. You want him to come get us?” he asked. 

Eerie chewed her lip a second. “I need to be here,” she said, finally, “but I’d understand if you don’t want to stay.” She didn’t look at him. 

He looked her over, knowing he couldn’t leave her when she was likely to throw herself in dealing with Bruce’s shit while denying her own loss because she and Damian didn’t have a clear-cut connection. The arm around her squeezed a little as he said, “I’ll stay here, help you out for a little while.” And the relief that washed over her face told him he’d made the right choice.

Roy answered after the second ring, which was surprisingly prompt. “Jay?” he said, sounding a little frantic. “That you?”

“Yeah, Roy, it’s me.”

“Thank Jesus H. Christ,” Roy sighed. “You okay? All in one piece?”

“I’m short a tooth, but that’s about it.”

“And Eerie? She alright?”

“Yeah, Roy, we’re fine,” Jason almost snapped, then regretted it. “Look, man, some shit’s gone down. Family shit. Robin… Robin’s dead.”

“Aw, man,” Roy moaned. “Fuck, Jaybird, I’m sorry. I mean, I know you kinda hated the kid--”

“Yeah, thanks,” Jason cut him off drily. “Anyway, we’re gonna stick around Gotham a few days, get things straightened out, ya know?”

“Sure thing, Jay. Anything you need.” Roy hesitated a moment. “And tell Eerie that I’m sorry too.”

“Will do, Roy. I’ll talk to you in a few days.”

He returned to find Nightwing, sans mask, wrapped around Eerie with a grip so fierce Jason was worried he was going to have to get out the bolt cutters and break some fingers. Dick’s shoulders were shaking and his face was pressed into Eerie’s neck, and her arms around his back were just as tight. A hot coil of jealousy settled in Jason’s middle, but he pushed away the impulse, reminding himself that if Dick wasn’t hugging her, he’d be hugging somebody. Like Jason. 

Tim was notably stoic as he tugged gear off in the dressing area. “Where’s Bruce?” he asked Jason, shucking gloves and gauntlets into a locker.

“Upstairs,” Jason answered, leaning against a wall with his arms crossed. “Eerie gave him a sedative and I hauled his ass to bed.”

Tim grunted a reply, unstrapping his bandolier and pulling the bright red tunic off to reveal the body armor underneath. “We’ll need to get Talia in cold storage,” he said, tonelessly. “He’ll want to bury her.”

It suddenly struck Jason that he should probably feel something about Talia’s death. She had brought him… well, not back to life, but back to himself. She’d given him teachers and training. Hell, she’d done for him about as well as she’d done for her own son. 

But she’d also used and manipulated him at a time when he wasn’t in a good place in his own head, twisted him into a weapon in her little vindictive war against Bruce --  _ but at the time, you thought you wanted it  _ \-- and seduced him into her bed -- _ at the time, you thought you wanted that too _ . 

It was too complicated for him to feel anything but tired, and looking at Tim, he was pretty sure the younger man felt the same way. 

“Dick held it together until we got back here,” Tim said, interrupting his thoughts. Jason followed his gaze to where Dick was slumped in the chair at the console, Eerie practically in his lap and stroking his hair. “We kinda knew after this morning,” Tim went on, “after we buried him, that Bruce was gonna, you know…”

“Be Bruce?” Jason supplied, with a twist of his lips that wasn’t amused.

“Yeah,” Tim sighed, sat down heavily on the bench while he wrestled with his boots and leggings. “So Dick just took over, kept the team moving. I don’t think he’s really had time to process it until now. And he and Eerie were basically co-parenting Damian while Bruce was gone--”

Jason rolled his eyes, mostly out of habit. “Relax, Baby Bird,” he said, “I’m not jealous.”  _ Not  _ that _ jealous at least _ . But the statement seemed to at least soothe Tim, who probably just wanted to avoid any more family drama. “Just hit the showers,” Jason went on. 

Tim wrinkled his nose. “I’m not the one who pissed himself and sat around in it for 24 hours.”

Jason grimaced. “Point taken. We’ll both hit the showers.”

Jason had emerged from the fancy-ass facility -- Bruce had renovated since the last time he’d used it -- with a towel around his waist and another draped over his shoulders just as Dick had been stripping in the locker area. The original Robin gave him a weak smile. “Sorry to monopolize your girl,” he said apologetically. 

Jason couldn’t help but roll his eyes again; did his brothers think he was  _ that  _ insecure? “You were gonna be hugging somebody,” Jason said. “Better her than me.”

Dick’s smile deepened a little, but he didn’t protest. “You gonna stick around for a little while?” 

“Yeah, I guess that’s the plan,” Jason answered, glancing out to where Eerie was working on the big console.

“It’ll be good to have you around for a few days,” his older brother said, starting to actually pull his uniform off. Jason never understood why Dick liked it so tight, but he supposed every man was entitled to his preferences. 

“Yeah, we’ll see if you’re still saying that a couple of days from now.”

Tim reappeared, only slightly damp and in his own towel, and added, “I give it 12 hours. Tops.”

“I’m not sure if I should be flattered or insulted, Replacement,” Jason said, smirking a little. 

Tim shrugged. “Merely making a calculation based on previous data.” The corners of his lips were twitching just a little.

Eerie seemed to spot that they were all in one place and hurried over. “Since Alfred isn’t here to be Alfred, I’ll pick up the slack. Everybody’s staying in the manor tonight, and we’ll have a 10 am breakfast meeting, before Bruce comes back to his senses. By then, I should have some idea of what kind of damage control we’re looking at. Sound good?”

Jason expected some push-back, especially from being ordered to stay in the house. Hell, he was about to complain himself -- no way he was going back into his old room. He’d taken one peek when he’d gotten here and upon discovering it had been left untouched, a shrine to his younger self, he promptly shut the door and walked away. But Tim and Dick were looking at her with complete acquiescence, too tired to fight someone who was helping to order the chaos around them, and Jason realized that he was too tired to fight too.

Eerie would argue to her grave that she was no leader, and really, she wasn’t. But she was a great organizer, and that seemed to be what they needed right now.

So, the only response was Dick quietly asking, “Can we make waffles while Alfred is gone?”

Eerie smiled at him tightly. “I’ll even make ‘em like we do back home.”

Eerie started undressing, hanging her cape and hood in a locker before unzipping the body armor, and Dick was finally naked enough to head toward the shower himself. Tim was pulling on clothes, and they all moved around each other like this was just any other day, while Jason stood there in a towel and wondered what he was going to wear. Tim noticed his dilemma first, and tapped on a locker that had gone unopened. “Alfred kept some stuff that should fit you,” he said as he passed by, on his way out of the Cave entirely. 

Sure enough, there were a few pairs of sweatpants, plain black t-shirts, and a red hoodie in the locker, along with a few sets of body armor and BDU pants and an extra pair of boots, that were just Jason’s size.  _ Damn, Alfie _ , Jason thought affectionately. Eerie was in jeans and a t-shirt of her own, and the traces of sand along the bottom hem told Jason that this was what she’d been wearing earlier, when Tim had called her away. “Ready to head up?” she asked him. 

“Guess so,” he said. 

As they mounted the stairs, Eerie said, “I’m guessing you don’t want to stay in your old room.”

“Hell no.”

“Okay.”

Eerie led him to large empty bedroom on the third floor, above the family’s rooms, snagging that familiar green backpack along the way. He looked around, seeing absolutely nothing to indicate that Eerie lived here. “This isn’t your room,” he said. 

“No, I live in the guest house, but sometimes when Alfred doesn’t trust me to go without butler supervision, I stay here.” She opened one of the closet doors to reveal a sparse collection of clothing that looked like Eerie’s. “I sometimes wonder how he manages to keep up with everyone’s sizes,” she mused, pulling out something to sleep in. “There’s extra toothbrushes and whatnot in the bathroom drawers,” she went on as she changed, but Jason waited until he’d seen the expanse of pale skin on her back -- slightly darker after their vacation, but only slightly -- covered again. He wanted to kiss her so badly, wanted to lay down next to her and feel as much of her body, her skin, against his as he could get. Before he knew it, his hands were on her hips and he was nuzzling into her neck, pulling her back into his chest. For a second, she resisted, limbs tense, then she let herself fall back. A low noise of distress came from her throat, and Jason jerked back, afraid he had hurt her, but Eerie turned and clung to him tighter, pressing her face into him as her shoulders started to shake. Jason was fully prepared for her to start crying again, so he was surprised when her lips found his, needy and forceful. Caught off guard, he pulled away to study her face, which she quickly turned away. “Sorry,” she muttered, hand coming up to grab a handful of her hair in distress, “that was so stupid.” Before she could move away, though, he pulled her back to him. “No,” he said, “I… I want to be close.”

Eerie made another low keen then gasped a breath. “Close,” she whispered, her body pressing against him from knee to chest. “Please, I…” Her forehead bumped against his sternum, and he quickly buried his nose in her hair, as oily as it was. “I don’t know what I’m feeling right now but I’m feeling so much of it and I can’t stand it and I want… I want…”

“Shhh,” Jason said, running his hand up and down her back, “It’s fine. Come to bed with me.”

At first, Eerie was tentative, kissing him back hesitantly and letting fingertips grip the hem of his shirt, like she felt guilty about wanting anything so mundane as sex at a time like this, but Jason persisted until she was nipping at his neck with as much fervor as she had shown just a few minutes before. He pulled up her shirt to fill his hands with her breasts, listening to the soft sounds she made when he licked her nipples, feeling a shiver as she pressed her hips against him.

When he kissed her neck again, he tasted salt, and looked up to see a steady stream of tears leaking down her face. “I’m sorry,” she said, turning her face away from him again, “it’s not you, I swear. I want this, I’m just --”

“It’s okay,” he said, wiping his thumb at the outside corner of her eye. “Whatever you want right now.”

In response, she pressed against his shoulder until he was on his back and rolled over to straddle him, bearing down on his growing erection and attacking his mouth with renewed intensity. Somehow they got naked, skin to skin just like Jason wanted, and Eerie found a condom in the bedside table -- apparently Alfred still kept all the bedrooms stocked. Jason sat up, holding his weight with one arm and wrapping the other around Eerie’s waist as she slowly eased herself down on him. He held her as close as he could as she rode his cock, letting her tits slide up and down his chest and her sharp pants ghost through his hair as she whispered his name over and over. “Oh Eerie,” he moaned low, sucking at her collarbone, “I missed you.” It was completely inadequate to describe how he felt right now, the overwhelming sense of coming home, despite all the grief that came with it, but she seemed to understand, driving down on him harder and saying, “Here with you… here with you…”

The climax, when it hit, wasn’t the same earth-shattering, mind-blowing thing that they’d shared before, but it didn’t matter as long as Eerie kept herself pressed up against him, her tears dripping off her jaw and down his chest and him trying to kiss them away. “It’s okay,” he whispered, “it’s all fucked up, but it’ll be okay.”


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter pulls from the Requiem for Robin stuff and the Batman and Robin stages of grief issues.

The first phone call came in at 7:26 am. A quick glance at the screen clarified exactly which number the caller had dialed so Eerie could answer appropriately, though she already knew the number in question. She took a moment to swallow the phlegm in her mouth and press the heels of her palms into her eyes in a moment of despair --  _ Fuck this shit, fuck everything, everyone can just go fuck off _ , she let herself think -- before swinging out of bed and answering the phone. “Mr. Wayne’s assistant,” she said, voice sounding polite if a little hoarse.

“Hello, Eerie,” Lucius Fox said. “I didn’t realize you were back at work yet.”

“This seemed like an all-hands-on-deck situation,” she answered, digging through the pile of clothes beside the bed and hoping he wouldn’t question any further. She wasn’t entirely sure what Bruce had told everyone about her absence.

“So you’ve heard the news,” Lucius went on, and Eerie breathed a small sigh of relief. “Is Bruce in town?”

“Yes, though he had a small accident in his haste to get back,” Eerie answered, knowing her boss wouldn’t be able to stay out of the public eye long enough to heal this time. “He’s fine,” she clarified quickly, “just some bumps and bruises, and he’s resting right now.”

“Yes, well, I suppose we’ve all gotten used to seeing the evidence of Bruce’s extreme recreational habits,” Lucius said drily. “Look, the board needs to meet ASAP, and Bruce needs to be there. How soon do you think you could get him here?”

“It’s going to be this afternoon at the earliest,” Eerie admitted.

“Give me a time,” Lucius demanded. 

“Look, Mr. Fox,” Eerie said, grabbing at her hair and noticing that Jason was watching through slitted eyes, like he could trick her into believing he was still asleep. “I can give you a time, I can put it on Mr. Wayne’s agenda for the day, but right now, I can’t guarantee anything.”

“Fine, Eerie, whatever you can do is fine. Just give me a time to tell the board.”

She shook her head in exasperation. “Two o’clock.”

“I’ll let everyone know,” Lucius said. “We’re going to take the R&D building on Watterson as a temporary headquarters.”

“I’ll do my best to have Mr. Wayne there at 2,” Eerie said, “and I’ll let you know as soon as I know he won’t make it.”

Ending the call and pulling a shirt over her head, Eerie turned to look at Jason, who rolled over to reach out for her. “Come back to bed,” he said. “Deal with that shit later.” 

She smiled at him sadly, body slumping a little. “The calls are just going to keep coming,” she answered, tugging up a pair of shorts, “and of all of us, I’m the one who’s been through the least hell in the past 72 hours.”

“Bullshit,” Jason spat, but it was slow in coming off his tongue, belying his exhaustion.

She walked closer to the bed and grabbed his hand to kiss the knuckles. “Go back to sleep for a little while,” she said.

He glared at her, hand clasping tighter around hers, but the argument was cut off by her phone ringing again. “Told you,” she said, with a smirk. “Go back to sleep and when you wake up, there’ll be waffles.”

She grabbed her laptop on the way out the door, answering the phone again. “Mr. Wayne expresses his condolences for the families of those who have suffered in the recent violence, but he will not be making any further statement until he's had a chance to review all the details of the situation,” she told the reporter smoothly. “You can direct any further inquiries to the Wayne Enterprises PR department.” Then, as soon as she had started the coffee maker in the kitchen and propped herself up on one of the stools at the island, she sent an email to the PR department with some instructions to express sympathy and nothing else until Bruce had a chance to meet with the board. It was fairly standard practice, but in the madness, it seemed prudent to at least let them know that Bruce was in the loop. 

The phone calls came in steadily. The reporters all got the same statement. Commissioner Gordon scheduled a one o’clock meeting at GCPD headquarters. A few business acquaintances and romantic regulars called, concerned when they hadn't been able to raise Bruce. The only one who got much of anything out of her was Clark Kent. 

“I've heard some rumors about Robin,” he said as soon as she answered his call. “That he died.”

She swallowed. “That's true.”

“Oh, Eerie,” Clark said, full of sincerity, “I'm so sorry. Do you need anything? Anything I can do?”

She felt tears welling up again, blinked them away and took a deep breath. “Thanks, but I think we’re good right now.”

“How is everyone?” he asked. 

“I think they're still in shock,” she answered, thinking of the numb looks she'd seen the night before. “Damian’s mom died last night, too, and Bruce, well, we just sedated him and put him to bed, so it's hard to tell right now…”

Clark grunted in understanding; he knew Bruce’s tumultuous moods as well as anyone. “If you or any of the family need  _ anything _ ,” he said, “you give me a call.”

The calls slowed down around 9:30, and Eerie, despite the twisting in her gut, was feeling the need for food. Jason showed up around that time, looking a little less sleep-deprived. He gave her a little kiss as he headed for the coffee maker. “Everything good?” he asked, voice low and rough. 

“Well, no,” Eerie answered, standing and stretching her arms above her head. “But I'm making waffles anyway.”

Jason took over her spot at the breakfast bar with his mug as she pulled out a waffle iron and various supplies. As she cracked an egg into a mixing bowl, he said, “Last night, you said you'd make them like they do back home, but I don't know where home is for you.”

“Tennessee,” she answered easily, cracking another egg, “and the secret ingredient is bourbon.”

“Tennessee, huh? How the hell did you end up in Gotham?”

“Gotham University had a good grad program for what I wanted to study and they offered the best scholarship relative to cost of living.” She beat the eggs lightly before measuring out the waffle mix. No one had yet figured out how Alfred went so wrong with waffles, but Eerie suspected it was because he didn't believe that a pre-made mix could be sufficient. “Go get the bourbon from the liquor cabinet.”

Jason acquiesced easily enough, but with his head in the large walnut storage unit on the far side of the kitchen, he said, “Which one do you want?”

“What's available?”

“Looks like Booker’s, Eagle Reserve, Jefferson’s, and Larceny.”

“Of course Alfred would never keep anything as pedestrian as Evan Williams in the house,” Eerie muttered. When it came to cooking with bourbon, cheaper was usually better. “Bring me the Larceny,” she told Jason; it was the cheapest and had enough bite for the flavor to come through even after being cooked. 

The phone started ringing again as Jason handed Eerie the bottle, but before she could do anything, Jason snatched it up and answered. “Mr. Wayne’s assistant,” he said, smirk on his face as she glared at him. She watched nervously as he listened, hoping it wasn't a reporter and praying that if it was Jason wouldn't do anything stupid. “Who should I say is calling?” he asked, and she breathed a little easier; he was at least being polite. Then his face paled just a smidgen and he handed the phone to her. “It's your mother.”

Eerie sighed as she pressed the phone to her ear. She'd figured she would hear from her parents about this latest round of domestic terrorism eventually. “Hello?”

“Are you alright?” her mother asked hurriedly. “Who was that man that answered your phone? Did you lose your job?”

She rolled her eyes and poured a liberal serving of liquor into her waffle batter. “I'm fine, Mom,” she answered. “And that was one of Bruce’s staff. I'm cooking right now and he grabbed the phone for me.” She made a point of not looking at Jason while she lied. 

“You’re cooking? Why are you cooking?”

“Because Bruce's butler is busy and his kids are here right now to help with the mess, and they've gotta eat.”

Her parents had never really understood her job, which was fine by her; it meant fewer questions and suspicions. It also meant that to them she looked like a glorified gopher for a rich asshole. They'd warmed up slightly when she'd told them she was also tutoring Damian -- teaching was a profession they approved of, being part of it themselves -- but they would never comprehend how she could find a life of taking notes and answering phones and running errands fulfilling. 

They would also never know she was a metahuman who worked as a vigilante. 

“But you're safe, right?” her mother went on. “They've just been showing the footage from the bombing…”

“Yes, Mom, I'm fine. I was actually out of the country until last night, so I missed most of what was going on.” The liquor had made the batter a little too runny, so Eerie sprinkled in some more mix. “How are you and Dad?”

“Oh we're fine,” her mother said. “Henry is planning a trip to the States soon, to the Wickenheiser Collection again for his next book project.”

“That will be nice,” Eerie said, stirring. “You're not going with him?”

“No, I'll be teaching and couldn't get sabbatical. It would be nice to get a little taste of home, though. Have you been down South lately?”

“No, haven't had time. Maybe when Dad’s in Carolina, I'll be able to get away for a few days to visit.”

They talked for another minute, with Eerie assuring her mother again that she was fine and safe and would let her know if any of that changed. By the time she hung up, the waffle iron was hot.

“So…” Jason said behind her as she sprayed the iron with cooking oil, “that was your mom?”

“Yeah, she saw the news about the attack and wanted to make sure I was alright.” Eerie poured the batter and shut the lid. 

“She just now decided to check on you?” Jason snorted.

“My parents are in the UK,” she explained, refilling her coffee cup with what was left in the pot and starting the process of making a fresh one. “She didn't know anything was wrong until now.” 

“I'm getting the impression you're not close.”

“We're not.” Eerie sighed in frustration as coffee grounds somehow ended up on the counter and the floor. “Can we not talk about my parents right now?” she snapped. She slammed the coffee pot back into place and set it brewing before stalking over to look at the progress of the first waffle.

“No problem,” Jason snapped back. “Don't know why you'd be talking about anything with a member of the staff anyways.”

She swung around to glare at him. “Well maybe if you kept your damn hands of my phone!” 

“I was trying to help!”

“I didn't ask for your fucking help, did I?”

But Eerie immediately regretted it; the conflict was draining and she wasn't mad at Jason anyway. She turned back to the counter, opening the waffle maker to pry out the waffle and pour batter in for another, a wave of guilt and shame washing over her. 

She could hear Jason moving behind her, but his hand slipping around her waist to grab her own and squeeze surprised her. “Hey, it's okay,” he said. “You're right, I shouldn't have answered your phone.” She was still for a moment, then relaxed back into the touch. 

“Sorry,” she mumbled.

“Don't worry about it,” he said, thumb making an easy circle over the web between thumb and forefinger before he moved away to grab some plates and silverware. Eerie didn’t think anything about his sudden switch from spitting to soothing until Tim came in a few minutes later. “Morning,” he said, shifting from one foot to the other uneasily. “Uh, Eerie, I think you're projecting.”

She cursed under her breath, suddenly realizing why Jason had done the thing she'd said helped panic attacks. “Jay, you should have said something,” she groused, searching for Alfred’s kitchen emergency kit in the cabinets. She could see him out of the corner of her eye, leaned against the counter with his arms crossed over his chest and glaring in Tim's direction. “You don't seem to like the sedatives,” he said in a hard tone, “and I ain't feeling nothing worse than you are.”

She glanced up from her searching, seeing a clear annoyance in his line to Tim and the opening suggestions of a little power struggle going both ways. She needed to cut this off before it had a chance to become a thing. “Well, you’re the exception,” she said drily, finding the carefully packed box and the syringe inside. At her behest, Alfred had stashed the sedative everywhere he had stashed emergency first aid supplies, in case of sudden projections beyond her control. She stabbed the needle into her thigh, hissing a little at the pain, before standing and dropping the used syringe unceremoniously on the countertop. The chemicals kicked in quickly, as intended, and Eerie did her best to hide the way her legs suddenly turned to jelly. The next time she looked around to where Tim was preparing his giant mug of black coffee, all his threads were washed out and hard to bring into focus. She didn't need threads, though, to see that Jason was still annoyed with his younger pseudo-brother, despite the recent run of them being on good terms.  _ Whatever,  _ she thought.  _ Irritation is better than murderous rage.  _

By the time Dick made an appearance -- looking like hell -- there were enough waffles for them to sit down and eat, all of them pulling up stools around the kitchen island rather than moving to the dining room. For a long time, no one spoke, but at some point, Jason took over waffle iron duties. Eventually, seeing that no one else seemed inclined to take charge, Eerie said, “Okay, first things first, we all know Bruce is gonna be the never-ending dark angel of justice the next few days, so how long can you guys stay in town to help with that?”

Dick shrugged, but Tim had a more definite answer. “I've got to get back to the Titans. Tomorrow, day after at the latest.”

She nodded. “Second thing,” she went on, “where the hell is Alfred?”

Tim and Dick exchanged a glance, then Dick said, “Bruce blamed him for letting Damian leave that night. He told him to take a vacation.”

“And this was yesterday morning?” Eerie asked. Jason plopped another waffle in front of her and without thinking, she grabbed a handful of blueberries and the whipped cream as Dick and Tim nodded. “Then he's not far, probably still in Gotham. In any case, we need him back.”

“I'll track him down,” Dick offered, tipping a little more sugar in his coffee. 

Eerie nodded and turned to Tim. “Lucius has scheduled an emergency board meeting today at two, and you should probably be there whether or not we manage to get Bruce to make an appearance.” Tim nodded his assent and Eerie went on. “Anything else we need to cover now?” Blank looks all around. “Great, so the only thing left to decide is who's gonna go get Bruce out of bed.”

 

+++++

 

For a few days, Batman tore the town apart, appearing around Gotham at all times of the day, leaving a trail of broken and bloody criminals behind him. Nightwing was on  _ make-sure-B-doesn’t-kill-himself  _ duty while Kairos and Red Hood tried to mitigate the fallout from the enormous power vacuum Leviathan’s collapse had left. That mostly involved checking up on the activities of the usual suspects, and together they decided that the best solution at the moment was to clear the way for the Penguin to consolidate his holdings. Cobblepot was a pretentious asshole who’d sell his own mother, but he was predictable.

Jason spent most of his daylight hours in Eerie’s house, which he'd been relieved to find wasn’t furnished in the high priced stuff from the manor. Instead, the living room was dominated by the futon she’d gotten in high school, and her bed was a well-worn family heirloom, or so she explained when she saw him eyeing them. It was all very middle class -- a couple of gaming consoles with a small selection of games in contrast to the huge entertainment center in the manor, wool-blend blankets instead of pure merino, posters and prints in place of original artworks. It was the kind of home Jason would have once given his left arm for -- before he came to live the life of the billionaire playboy’s adoptee. At the very least, Eerie’s home rivaled the manor in its impressive book collection, an odd assortment that attested to Eerie’s love of science fiction and fantasy as well as her academic pedigree; one day Jason had picked up something called  _ Gender Trouble  _ expecting a campy sci-fi romp and instead finding block after block of incomprehensible text. 

That was how Jason passed most days: reading books from Eerie’s second bedroom-turned-library while she attended to Bruce Wayne's business since the man himself was too busy cracking skulls to take his own calls. 

Then, one day, Batman took off in the plane and didn't come back. 

“So what’s the plan?” Hood asked when Kairos and Alfred had ended their conferences at the computer. She shrugged, pressing the edges of her domino in place. “Alfred will keep trying to get in touch with Bruce,” she said. “We go on patrol, coordinate with Dick in the field.”

Alright,” he answered, tugging on his helmet. “Where we headed?”

Kairos paused to pull on her own helmet. “I don’t think anyone’s been out to Tricorner in a few days,” she replied. “Catwoman’s got East End, and Batgirl’s been covering Burnside and Midtown. Batwoman tends to float, but nothing’s hit social media about her being in Tricorner--”

“Eerie,” he cut her off, grabbing her hand, “you don’t have to explain everything to me. I  _ can  _ take orders, ya know.”

He couldn’t see her face, but her tone was reassuringly sarcastic. “Who are you and what have you done with Jason Todd?”

Kairos was silent during the ride out to Tricorner, not that Red Hood was surprised; she’d left the house just after seven that morning with only a few hours of restless sleep. He’d woken twice to the sound of those catching, heaving breaths that said she was trying not to cry. On the one hand, he was pretty sure that crying occasionally over the loss of a loved one in week following their death was normal. On the other, it was not normal that she wanted to hide it from everyone, including him, no matter how many times he pulled her to his chest and whispered to her in the dark.

He deliberately did not think about the sudden uptick in the frequency of his nightmares.

Tricorner was blissfully quiet; the gangs that normally kept the neighborhood in shambles had apparently been gutted by Leviathan and had yet to recover. Hood kept an eye on a couple of dope dealers on a corner while Kairos tried to raise Nightwing on comms, then called his phone. Half of a conversation washed over him as he fidgeted with a magazine of rubber bullets (no reason to prompt discussions that might involve ultimatums before necessary).

“It’s Kai. Any idea where B is? … Chicago? Why? … Seriously, now? … Alright, fine. Let me know when you’ll be back in town.”

“Please tell me B is in Chicago and Nightwing is there to bring his ass back home,” Hood said when Kairos crouched beside him. 

“Nightwing has no idea where B is because he left for Chicago to chase down the ghost of Tony Zucco,” Kairos snapped. “I swear to God, I’m the only one in this damn outfit who thinks it’s fucking ridiculous to drop everything just to chase after your damn personal revenge fantasy.”

“Red Robin’s pretty level-headed,” Hood remarked drily, still toying with the clip.

“You missed the elaborate get-Mr. Freeze-to-kill-Captain Boomerang scheme.”

He chuckled. “There’s hope for that kid yet.”

Hood had made a point of not even checking if the Joker was in or out of Arkham at the moment. With B distracted and now missing, it would be all too tempting take care of that problem once and for all. But Eerie needed him -- for patrolling the city, sure, but also to keep track of whether or not she was eating and taking her meds, to watch for signs of migraine, to sometimes preemptively silence her alarm so she’d sleep an extra hour…

In any case, it didn’t seem like the best time to go chasing his own personal revenge fantasy.

“So,” he said, pulling his mind away from the possibility of fixating on crowbars, “these guys Cubanos?”

Kairos hummed thoughtfully. “Pretty sure, but if they are, the Cubanos have seene a recent change in management.”

“Wouldn’t be surprised if that’s happened a lot la--”

He was interrupted by a clipped British voice over the comms. “Kairos, this is Penny One.”

“Copy, Penny One,” she answered. “What do you got for us?”

“There’s a disturbance in the Bowery, Madison and 22nd. GCPD is en route, but they may need assistance.”

Hood and Kairos were moving in tandem before Alfred got it all out. Tricorner to the Bowery would take a little time, but Hood knew a few shortcuts, and Kairos fell in behind him easily enough, maneuvering their bikes through alleys and between cars. They were still a few blocks away when he saw smoke rising between two tenement buildings and gunned forward. Kairos backed off. “I'm gonna hit the roofs,” she said over the comm, “cover you from the air.”

He considered his options and decided that the roof approach would probably be better anyway. The apartment building he landed on gave a view of the intersection of Madison and 22nd, where an all out brawl had erupted. Probably around two dozen guys, no visible affiliation marks, were beating the ever living shit out of each other while an old Ford poured fire and smoke into the sky. Kairos came up beside him as he took stock, trying to figure out the best way to keep the damage from spreading. “Any idea who we’re looking at here?” he asked her. If it was a gang war, then it would be nice to know who the players were.

“No clue,” she answered. “I don’t get out here much.”

“So who’s been taking care of the Bowery?”

“Honestly,” she answered, voice sounding flat, “the general policy has been containment. It’s possible B had some plan in the works to deal with the most recent hostile takeover--”

“Meanwhile, people here are left to die from exploding cars?” he spat back. 

“I know,” she cut off his impending rant. “A few times I suggested that I start surveillance here, but B had me focused on anyone moving arms into the city, probably looking for Leviathan.”

“Whatever,” he snapped, annoyed at her excuses. “Let’s just get this over with. Let’s stick close to the car, use the confusion to our advantage and hope they keep fighting each other until we can put a few down.”

“Okay.”

They fell into the back-to-back fighting style Batman favored when taking on a large number of assailants with a partner. Hood was the heavy, putting thugs down with rubber bullets to the gut and chest, while Kairos guarded his 6, throwing batarangs and punches. GCPD arrived on the scene, four officers in riot gear who worked on one edge and surprisingly didn’t get their asses handed to them. Whoever the brawlers were, they did not fight like Bowery muscle. They looked the part -- Hood even noticed a few gang tattoos from organizations that had been defunct since his time has Robin -- but they acted like crazy fuckers, just lashing out at whatever was in front of them with no sense of plan or purpose. “Time to go,” he announced as he emptied another magazine, deciding they had thinned the numbers enough that the boys in blue could handle it, especially since so many of the guys were still intent on beating on each other. On the nearest roof, however, Hood looked back down to see Kairos moving among bodies. When she joined him, her free hand was full of blood samples. “You think they’ve been drugged?” he asked.

“We’ll they aren’t exactly being rational,” she answered. “How close is Batcave East?”

“Four minutes by bike,” he said taking the samples she passed to him. “What, I’m your errand boy, now?”

There was some real anger still simmering under the words, but she ignored his snark, like she always did. “How often did you eat unlabeled food growing up?”

“All the time. Why?”

“What about something like steak?”

He barked a laugh. “If steak ever came into the neighborhood, it did not end up with scrawny kids like me.”

“It ended up with the big guys, right? Big guys like them?” Kairos pointed down to where GCPD was tasing one of the remaining brawlers.

“Yeah, sure,” he said, crossing his arms and glaring. “So what the hell does that have to do with… wait, is this about that fucking cow?”

Kairos shrugged. “B thought he and Robin tracked down all the meat, but maybe some of it was supposedly disposed of, some early tests that didn’t go right or something--”

“Grade D but edible,” Hood said, clearly remembering the label on a pack of sausages he’d manage to steal once.

“So yeah, go analyze those for anything that looks remotely like Pyg’s work,” Kairos went on, “and I’m going to try to figure out what these guys have in common, see if I can locate a source.”

It took a few days and an awkward conversation with Gordon to track down what was left of Pyg’s tainted meat. Hood had stayed entirely out of the Commissioner’s line of sight -- no reason to alert him that he was back in town and risk a whole new manhunt -- but listening to the way he grilled Kairos about Batman’s recent activities was excruciating, especially when she just wanted to mitigate a threat to public safety as quickly as possible. In the meantime, Alfred coerced the Replacement into taking his own private plane to B’s last known location in an attempt to bring the big guy home. Jason was skeptical of the kid’s chances at success, but he kept those thoughts to himself.

Instead, he made a clear priority of patrolling the Bowery, even if he and Kairos had already run themselves ragged on a given night. To her credit, Kairos never questioned him, never complained, just followed along as he took a look over the worst of the crime alleys and the dingiest of the flop houses. They’d run through this routine a few times before Hood felt ready to comment on it, as they perched on a roof over a string of working girls. “I can’t believe B just let this place slide,” he spat, unable to contain his anger any longer.

Kairos hummed in agreement beside him. “It was a mistake,” she admitted, “but B was never the right man for the job.”

“Oh, so you’re just gonna give him a pass?” he snapped back.

She frowned, and by now Hood was familiar enough with that particular set of her mouth to know that she was trying to organize her thoughts before she spoke. “No,” she said finally. “He made a bad choice when he turned his back on this place. He had many tools at his disposal. But at the same time, he’s never going to be able to fix the Bowery because he’ll always see it as  _ fixing the Bowery _ .” She looked over at him, one side of her mouth lifting a little. “You, on the other hand… you’ve got a much better idea of what these people need.”

Hood scowled hard, jerking his head away from her. No way he’d come back under Bruce’s thumb, no matter what she thought he could do here. Besides, there was still the Untitled to worry about.

Later that night, as Eerie slipped her arms around his waist in the shower, pressing her cheek to his back, she said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t say things when I don’t know what I’m talking about.”

He snorted, head bowed under the spray and hand grabbing one of hers. “Maybe… maybe you have a point,” he said. “But right now, we’ve got bigger fish to fry, yeah?”

She kissed him earnestly, pressing her body against his without reservation, letting herself be lifted and held with complete trust and abandon as he backed her against the wall and thrust inside her. It was like something out of younger Jason’s wet dreams -- fighting crime with a gorgeous woman, then fucking her in the showers as she called his name loud enough for it to echo through the entire cave. Following her home, climbing into her bed, spending the whole night with her body pressed against his… all of that was beyond younger Jason’s ken, and older,  _ wiser _ Jason was finding himself inclined to do a hell of a lot to keep it.

Including toying with the idea of staying in Gotham.

So when Batman finally came back home and invited him to do a little hunting, Jason thought,  _ What the hell? Let’s see if we can make this work _ . 

Because for Eerie he’d give it a go.

 

+++++

 

“Where’s Jason?” Eerie asked as soon as Batman exited the elevator to the hangar. 

“I don’t know.” 

The line to Jason knotted up tightly in anger and disappointment, and Eerie’s stomach fell. “Didn’t he go with you?”

“Yes.” Batman stalked toward the locker room, not even looking her way.

Eerie reached out and snagged the edge of his cape, jerking him around as much as her relatively meager strength could. “What the hell, Bruce?” she snapped, glaring at him, anxiety rising.

“We fought,” he said flatly. “Jason left.”

“And where were you when he left?”

“Ethiopia.”

Eerie’s eyes widened, then narrowed. “You took him back to the Magdala Valley.” When he didn’t deny it, Eerie snarled, “You piece of shit. You took him back to the worst part of his life. What the fuck, Bruce?”

Bruce spun on her, cowl snapping down in an instant, to glare at her just as hard. It was not comforting to see the black eye the cowl had been hiding. “Because I will do anything to get my son back,” he growled in response.

“Even if it means losing your other sons in the process?” Eerie wrapped her hand up tighter in the cape in case Bruce tried to bolt. “Tim won’t even talk about what happened last week, Dick has taken off after Tony Zucco again in an idiotic attempt to cope with loss, and you just ran Jason off by telling him the only reason he matters to you is because he came back to life!” Bruce tried to move away, but Eerie dug in her heels. “Not this time,” she spat. “You don’t get to just walk away from your fuck-ups every time.” He was actually dragging her across the floor, reaching up to detach the cape. Eerie readjusted before she fell on her ass, but kept up her pursuit. “We are  _ all  _ fucked-up over Damian’s death,” she said, following Bruce as he made his way to the locker room, shedding pieces of his suit. His threads to his living sons were writhing, telling her that her words were have some effect, so she pressed on. “You think you have some kind of premium on pain? Hell, Alfred was that kid’s father as much as you were. There was a whole  _ year _ where you were gone and Dick was Damian’s father. You think a fucking genetic label gives you the right to not give a shit about anyone else right now?” Her heartbeat was pounding in her ears as she yelled, whole body trembling, jaw clenched tight. 

Bruce punched her.

She recognized that it wasn’t a real punch as she staggered back, no where near Bruce’s full power, but it didn’t change the fact that, for the first time outside a sparring mat, he had raised a hand against her.

She spat, seeing a little blood hit the rock floor and feeling vindicated. “Fuck this shit,” she said. “I’m done.”

As she marched out of the cave, Eerie pulled out her cell, dialing Roy’s number.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, (a) we are riding this angst train all the way to Angstville, people, and (b) put bourbon in your waffles. It's fucking delicious.


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter draws extensively from RHATO #19-20, and once again, I haven't denoted exact quotations in any way because, well, authorial prerogative.

She had worried that the WE charter flight out of Ethiopia was a false lead, but as she stared down at the dead body of Khanate, who fancied himself something of a sky-pirate, Kairos felt a wave of relief wash over her with the Himalayan snow.

“Well at least we know we’re close?” Arsenal said, kneeling by another dead man and echoing her thoughts. 

“There’s no trace of Jason,” Starfire countered, sinking to the ground and immediately melting a puddle of snow around her feet.

“And knowing our Jaybird, he’d be covering his tracks anyway,” Arsenal added. 

“Then what do we do?” the Tamaranean asked.

Kairos felt their eyes on her, but she didn’t look up from the bullet holes she was studying. Ever since they’d picked her up just outside Gotham in Crux’s ship, they had done this thing where they’d look at her, then look at each other. If she had to guess, she’d say they were checking with each other for signs that she had started projecting, but Kairos wasn’t that worried yet. Bruce and Jason had a fight, Jason had taken off in dramatic fashion… nothing to be worried about. In fact, the Himalayas was a good sign: Jason was headed to the Acres of All, a place he felt safe, probably to collect himself. Not going on a murder spree at all. It was a good sign.

While Arsenal and Starfire chatted with the locals who had gathered at the crash site, Kairos examined the bodies more carefully. They didn’t look like they had been searched or pillaged, which meant that Jason didn’t think he’d be going far. Kairos, on the other hand, was only to happy to snag a package of almonds out one man’s pocket and a multi-purpose knife out of another’s. 

“I think we’re going to be better off on foot,” Arsenal said behind her.

She nodded as she turned. “Pretty sure Jason was expecting a short trip from here,” she said, brandishing the nuts. “He would have taken these with him otherwise.”

“Maybe he parachuted down a ways away,” Arsenal said. 

Kairos shook her head and pointed at the bullet hole through the goon’s head, one that had almost no blood around it. “He came through and made sure they were all dead,” she explained. “Probably knew we’d be trailing him.”

“Didn’t want us to have any surprises.” Arsenal huffed a little laugh. “That’s our Jaybird. He’ll make us track his ass down in a fucking blizzard, but he’ll at least make sure we’re  _ safe _ while we do it.”

Kairos snorted in agreement, eyes darting up to meet Arsenal’s. His face looked at taut with worry as hers felt.  _ No need to worry yet; he’s being very rational so far. In his own, weird, Jason way. _

“The old lady said that only those who know the All-Caste’s teachings will be able to find the entrance to the Acres of All,” Arsenal went on. “I know a little bit, maybe enough for us to at least, I dunno, find something…” He trailed off, one gloved hand rubbing the back of his neck.

Kairos managed a tight smile. “You do what you can,” she said. “I’ll try to do the Bat thing and find clues.”

When Kairos had seen where the Ethiopian flight had been destined, she’d grabbed her winter uniform. While Batman and the others tended to be moving enough to not need extra help staying warm, Kairos spent hours at a time sitting still, sometimes letting herself get covered in a layer of snow. As such, she had a special suit for winter, with heater units underneath the Kevlar. At a medium-low setting, it was enough to keep the worst of the mountain chill at bay for the first few hours of hiking through the knee-high snow drifts, but at that point, Kairos decided that the chill was set in so deeply that she’d be better off conserving the battery power than trying the crank the heaters up enough to make a difference. All the while, Roy led the way, talking softly to himself, a mantra of some sort --  _ commune with the darkness...accept the darkness… _

Kairos found herself falling into the rhythm of her own mantra.  _ Nobody exists on purpose, nobody belongs anywhere, everyone is going to die… nobody exists on purpose, nobody belongs anywhere, everyone is going to die… _

When Roy collapsed, Kairos was glad she’d saved the last of the batteries.

“ _ Roy! _ ” Kori called, landing in time to keep him from face-planting in the snow. 

“Gotta keep… moving,” he muttered.

“You’re getting sick,” Kori said as Kairos came up beside her to examine Roy’s face. “You’re not properly dressed for this climate.”

“Sez you,” Roy snarked back, but Kori had a point; neither of the humans was really dressed for this climate.

Kori reached behind her to grab Kairos’s hand, pulling her down next to her and Roy. She looked both of the in the eye before she said, “You have to accept the chance that Jason doesn’t want us to follow him. He came here alone for a reason. Maybe… maybe it’s best we turned back.”

Kairos felt her jaw tighten, saw Roy’s hesitant look in her direction, but she didn’t say anything because somewhere around hour five of this hike, she’d started to wonder the same thing herself. Instead, she focused her gaze on Roy’s boot, willing away tears because having her fucking eyelashes freeze would be the end of it.

Roy seemed to take her silence as a kind of assent. “No...please,” he said, “we can’t. If we ever leave, he might never come back.” Fuck, she could barely feel the tear that slid down her cheek over the numbness of the skin. “After everything that happened,” Roy went on, “with the Joker and Batman…”

“Yes,” Kori said, sounding as soothing and calm and Kairos had ever heard her, “maybe that will be his choice. He’s been through so much. Perhaps we are too tied to the darkness he’s faced.”

_ Perhaps you dragged him back into all of his memories of trauma and betrayal and fucked-up family _ , Kairos said to herself. 

But Roy was too taken by fever to be reasoned with, and his threads to Kori and Jason swelled to bursting. “These last few months working with the two of you…” He glanced over at Kairos. “The  _ three _ of you… it’s the first time in years my life has been worth living. We’re  _ good  _ together. It can’t be over. I won’t let it be.”

He collapsed into Kori’s embrace, and as he slipped into unconsciousness, Kori looked at Kairos with wide eyes. “He is sick.”

“Yeah,” Kairos agreed, rubbing a hand over her numb face to scrape away the icy residue left by her tears. “We need to get him into some shelter.”

Roy actually had quite a bit in the way of supplies, despite his failings in the clothing department, and as Kairos unrolled a sleeping mat and seriously insulated sleeping bag in the small cave Kori had managed to find for them, she had no problem imagining Roy as the kind of guy who had regularly gone camping on the weekends. “What do we do?” Kori asked her as she worked, cradling Roy against her body.

“We keep him warm, try to get him to drink a little water anytime he wakes up,” Kairos explained, unzipping the sleeping bag so it would cover all of them. “I don’t have much power left for the heaters in my suit, so your body is our main source of heat at the moment.”

“Then I’ll sleep in the middle,” Kori said simply, moving to lay Roy gently on the pallet Kairos had created and spooning in behind him. Kairos draped the sleeping bag over them, then crawled in behind Kori, too exhausted to be shy about how close she nestled to the Tamaranean.

Her dreams were… odd. Nothing like the dreams that Roy described later, the ones that lead him to the entrance to the Acres of All, but odd nonetheless, difficult to piece together. As near as she’d been able to parse it after waking, she’d been in a library, one she was sure she’d never seen in real life, and while she hadn’t actually been able to read any of the book titles (because dreams), she’d known all the books were autobiographies -- sometimes diaries, sometimes memoirs, sometimes the random collections of disconnected poetry, but all of them were people talking about themselves. She had been wandering the stacks, looking for books by/about someone in particular, but she couldn’t remember their name, so she just kept wandering, hoping that she’d see it and suddenly jar her memory.

“So interesting, isn’t it,” someone said at the end of a shelf, “the lies people tell themselves.”

Eerie looked up to see a short, wizened woman.  _ Crone _ , her mind supplied, tapping into a meta dream awareness,  _ here to guide you?  _ “Not always lies,” she said, “just truths from a certain perspective.”

The Crone barked a laugh. “I spent years teaching him empathy. It is not his natural inclination.”

“Is it anyone’s?” Eerie asked. “I guess we’re supposed to have an evolutionary predisposition to selfishness. Keeps our genes alive.”

“It’s yours.”

They had left the library and were drinking tea at a low table. Eerie was aware of how her body seemed at ease seated on the floor. “All that means is that my genes are less likely to survive,” she said, smiling slightly over her tea cup.

“Then maybe your genes are of more value,” the Crone countered, no hint of a smile on her face.

Eerie snorted. “You think I’d wish this on another?” she asked. “It’s a particular kind of hell.”

The Crone nodded. “And nobody exists on purpose.”

“No.” Suddenly, Eerie remembered her purpose. “I’m looking for someone, but I can’t seem to remember who.”

The Crone snorted, but Eerie wasn’t sure if it was derision or amusement. “That is because he does not remember who he is, and you only seem to understand others as they understand themselves.”

“What’s so wrong with that?” Eerie asked, feeling defensive.

“I did manage to teach him empathy,” the Crone said, “but teaching you self-preserving selfishness might be even more difficult. You rely too much on what your eyes tell you. Start thinking with your skin.”

Eerie furrowed her brow. “What do you mean?”

“Your eyes see trails to nowhere,” the Crone said, seeming to shrink as she sipped her tea. “But what does your skin know of nowhere?”

Eerie woke with a start, feeling goosebumps all over, even the parts that were still warm from her suit and Kori’s body heat. Her eyes darted around the cave, seeing nothing, until she focused her attention on Roy. There was a thread that hadn’t been there before, a thread that lead to nowhere, but Eerie couldn’t shake the sense of unease at the back of her neck, and before she even let herself think about it, she reached over to grab a handful of Roy’s hair and  _ yank _ .

He gasped, a strangle plume that couldn’t have been entirely the product of the cold billowing from his mouth. He sat up coughing as Eerie jerked back, scrambling out of the nest to find some water. “You okay?” she asked him as she squatted at his other side with the water bladder.

“Why does it feel like I just smoked a dozen cigars?” he wheezed. 

“I… I don’t know,” she answered, pushing the drinking tube into his gloved fingers. 

He took a long sip, then met her eyes again. “I know where the entrance is.” He turned and started shaking Kori awake. “I know where the entrance is. We have to go.”

 

+++++

 

Kori was yelling, screaming, fists clenched in a way that always meant starbolts were coming, but Eerie was too busy looking for the threads that should have been there, tying Jason to his friends. Nothing. Blankness all around him. She walked up to him, pushing herself in front of Kori and grabbing his hand. “Jason?” she said, searching his face.

“I have no idea who you people are,” he said, tugging his hand away.

“What do you mean, Jason?” Kori snapped. “It’s us… your friends… your partners…”

_ Your girlfriend… _

Roy grabbed Jason by the shoulders. “Jason, look at me.”

“Hey,” Jason answered nervously.

“Tell me my name.”

“How would I know your name?” Jason asked, sheepish little smile crossing his face.

“This isn’t funny, Jason!” Roy said, arms waving wildly. “This isn’t even a little bit funny!”

But Jason’s gaze remained blank. “Why do you keep calling me that?” He glanced back around to Eerie, who had backed up the staircase, where she could clearly see what Roy and Kori seemed to be having a hard time accepting: Jason did not remember them. He had no ties to any of them, to anyone really, a single thread running up the stairs that shimmered just a little when Jason said, “Yes, the little man said something like that, didn’t he?”

Eerie turned to see the endpoint of the line, a small bare-chested man seated on a floating cushion. “He did it to himself,” the man said, “with a little teensy bit of help from an old friend.”

“ _ S’aru! _ ” Kori howled, rising to shove a single finger in the man’s face. “What did you do?!” Jason was keeping his eyes on Roy, and Eerie couldn’t blame him; the redhead’s gestures were getting more erratic. 

“You kids should remember from your last visit,” the man started, then looked down at Eerie and added, “well, I guess you wouldn’t remember because you weren’t here, but I can pluck a memory from your mind easy as pie. That’s why your pal Jason came here in the first place… Here, see for yourself.”

The vision was powerful, overwhelming, and it left Eerie feeling sick to her stomach and dizzy. It also left her feeling a deep sense of distrust --  _ what does your skin know of nowhere?  _ \-- and while she had no doubts that Jason had lost his memories, she wasn’t quite ready to buy S’aru’s version of events. 

“I really don’t understand what’s happening…” Jason was saying when Eerie managed to refocus on the reality in front of her. She wanted so badly to touch him, kiss him, but that wouldn’t exactly be welcome given the current circumstances.

“You’ve just had your mind wiped clean of terrible, horrible memories, and these folks want me to undo all of that,” S’aru explained. “So tell the lovely ladies and their scruffy little friend how you’re feeling.”

“Um… I feel pretty great, actually,” Jason started, hand coming up to cup the back of his neck, and the smile that started to spread across his face was unreserved. “Like, it’s hard to describe. It feels like a huge weight’s been taken off my chest. Like I can finally breath easy.”

_ I could never have helped you breathe this easy… _

“You saw for yourselves,” S’aru said. “He asked me to do it.”

“Bullshit,” Roy answered.

“Roy, you can’t deny--” Starfire said as she tried to set a hand on his shoulder, but he brushed her away. “I absolutely can!” he snarled. “He wanted you to take away the memories of how the Joker fucked him over. He didn’t want a blank slate! He didn’t want to forget us!”

“His words,” S’aru replied serenely. “‘Everything connected to the darkness.’”

“Exactly!” Roy said, shoving his way into S’aru’s space. “That’s not  _ everything _ ! That’s not  _ us _ !”

“Roy…” Eerie started, watching Jason’s face slowly slip back toward the furrowed, hard look that was closer to normal the longer the argument dragged on, but S’aru was ready with a lecture. “You don’t really understand how memories work, do you?” the little man asked, tapping fingers against his temples. “They’re a network of collected images bound up by deep and powerful emotions. Snapshots of moments all in a single mesh. They all bleed into each other. Everything connected to the darkness means  _ everything _ . Period.”

There was a silence for a moment as Roy sized S’aru up. Jason fidgeted, almost like he wanted to step between them, and Eerie could see the new thread growing between him and Roy. It did not look the same as it had before; this Jason seemed put off by Roy’s brashness, unable to read his former friend’s tone and actions in the context of Roy’s emotional state because he was completely unaware what that emotional state was. How could he know what Roy was feeling right now? As of right now, Jason did not have the experience of ever losing a friend, of ever losing anyone.

_ Over… all over… _

“You’re up to something, aren’t you?” Roy said finally.

“What would I have to gain?” S’aru asked, hands held open. “Isn’t it more likely that with a life like his he’d want to forget?”

_ Yes _ .  _ Maybe. It’d been losing who he was entirely, but… _

A memory. Jason, sprawled across a bed, whiskey bottle in hand. “I regret going after the Robins.”

To be able to forget his mistakes, start with a fresh sense of self? Who was she to say that Jason wouldn’t want that?

But somewhere in her reverie, Eerie had lost the train of the conversation, and the second wave of memories was like a punch in the guts. This time they got more of a greatest hits montage: Jason’s dead mother -- the Joker with a crowbar -- post-coital screaming match with Talia -- confronting Batman, gun trained between his eyes -- Eerie already knew all of it, but  _ living  _ it like this, feeling the rush of cold then hot then sweat and heat across her skin…

“STOP!” Roy yelled. “Jason went through some horrible things in his life, but we all have. That’s why we’re good together. Together we’re stronger than some crappy memories. His connection to Eerie and Kori and me goes beyond  _ anything  _ involving the Joker.”

_ Stupid Roy,  _ Eerie thought,  _ everything is about the Joker for him right now. Just like everything for you is connected to Ollie, and everything for Kori is connected to Dick. Maybe one day it won’t be, but right now… _

She had an idle second to wonder who her life revolved around, at least at this moment in time, choked back a little sob when Damian’s face swam into view, only to be replaced by a younger Roy Harper getting the shit kicked out of him. She snorted when she realized that Jason remembered himself as wearing pants instead of the tiny trunks she’d known for a fact he’d been sporting. But he was a hero in this memory, the last time he’d ever remembered himself as a hero probably, if S’aru was right that this was the night he found out his mother was alive. Who could begrudge a man pants?

Then another rush of images -- fighting, killing, burning -- betrayal, guilt, shame…

She could hear Roy and Kori hitting the ground behind her. The only reason she managed to stay on her feet was Jason suddenly wrapping an arm around her. “You okay?” he asked, blue-green eyes filled with distant concern. “You don’t look so good.”

“Just a little unsteady,” she said, getting her feet under her before taking a half-step back -- fuck but she wanted to kiss him -- and winding her arms around her middle. “Thanks.”

“Jason has spent his life burying his past, trying not to let it infect his soul,” S’aru was saying. “Trying to stay on the path of justice. I suppose it just all became too much to bear…” His glowing eyes began shifting around to meet each of them in a piercing gaze. “But you all have secrets don’t you?” he asked with a little lilt, settling his sight on Kori. “Big bad things that haunt you forever.”

Kori lifted her chin defiantly. “Your past can’t haunt you if you don’t let it.”

S’aru barked a laugh. “You’re really one to talk! The little games you play? The little lies?” He brought his face mere inches from hers. “Out of this merry little gant, you’re the worst offender, princess.”

“What did you say?!” Kori screeched, jumping back into a defensive position, hands beginning to shine with energy.

S’aru turned his back to her nonchalantly. “Oh come on. Isn’t it time? You’ve spent so long keeping up your little ruse…”

Eerie’s eyes darted around, taking in the twisting of Kori’s threads. “Oh fuck,” she said under her breath. “Not now.”

Roy looked between S’aru and Kori, so lost. “What’s he talking about, Kori?”

“He’s lying,” Kori answered, physically placing herself between him and S’aru. “Don’t listen to him, Roy.”

“I can see how your mind works, kid,” S’aru said with a smile. “If anything, the bonds of memory and emotion are even stronger for you than they are in humans.” Which confirmed everything Eerie had suspected but never asked about, since Kori seemed to be more of a shoot-first-talk-later type. “But still you pretend,” S’aru went on, drifting around behind Roy, who just kept watching Kori with his jaw slack. “You try to make those who care about you think you can’t connect with them. You’re just trying to protect yourself. Yes, your mind works differently than any human. It’s beautiful, actually. You feel so strongly, so deeply, that one terrible memory can destroy you. So you bury it away in the back of your mind… and effectively it doesn’t exist anymore. But it’s a choice. Selective amnesia. You only forget what you want to forget.”

The air was suddenly very dry as Kori’s body threw off heat in waves, sparks of power flying off her. “Shut your mouth,” she growled.

S’aru did not heed the warning. “But you can still feel it, can’t you?” he said. “Lingering on the edge. Those emotions were far too powerful not to leave a trace, even in your alien mind. If you want Jason to live with his darkest moments, maybe you should try it for yourself.” 

S’aru lifted his hands and Kori’s body went rigid, trapped in some memory. Judging from the way her line to him swelled to almost bursting, Eerie assumed she was reliving a moment with Dick. She raised her own hands, directing fully powered starbolts as S’aru and screaming, “GET OUT OF MY HEAD!”

Eerie dragged Jason down behind the plinth he’d been sitting on, Roy coming in behind to cover both of this with his body, shouting, “Stay down!”

Jason didn’t listen. After muttering, “You people are crazy!” he jumped up and called, “Stop it, dammit! Stop all of this! I’m sick of you all fighting about me as though I’m not here!” He turned to Roy, face starting to look a little hard again. “Look… it’s Roy? Right?” he asked, then went on like it didn’t matter. “I can’t tell you why I made this decision, but if you’re the friend you say you are, I want you to respect it.”

Roy started to open his mouth, but Eerie cut him off. “Roy, if Jason made this choice, then he made this choice.”

Roy spun around, poked a finger in her face. “Oh fuck off!” he spat. “You show up for a few weeks, get in bed with him, and suddenly you think you know all about him?” Without pause, he turned back to address Jason, leaving Eerie with her jaw clenched and a deep-seated feeling that somehow this was her fault; she’d driven Jason Todd to erasing his memories. 

“As your friend, I need you to understand…” Roy explained. “You would have hated this. I can’t even believe that you’d want to forget a crappy movie… you hate losing the upper hand. They’re playing you here, and you don’t realize it.”

But Jason smiled, that open, genuinely smile that smoothed away the line in his forehead. “Look…” he said, trailing off, trying to find words. “The only thing I can tell you is that I feel free… I feel like the darkness has been wiped clean. That I can have a whole new destiny. I don’t want the memories back. Let me start over, Roy… please.”

And then Roy stabbed Jason with a tranq arrow and everything went to shit. Eerie crouched over Jason, checking his pulse and respiration, because who knew what the hell Roy kept in those things, and the next thing she knew, they were in the snow again, Jason a dead weight in her arms and a prickly feeling the back of her neck. She turned, scanning an overlook behind her, but there was only Kori and Roy bickering in the snow and her whole life crashing around her.

 

+++++

 

“She can’t see us, can she?” Essence asked when the woman holding Jason looked in their direction.

Ducra seemed smug, even in her spirit form. “She is learning not to rely on her eyes.”

S’aru appeared beside them. “We might have been better off if the Demon’s daughter had brought us her instead of him,” he huffed. “And the other two…” He snorted his disdain.

Ducra frowned sharply, shot an equally sharp look at S’aru. “Her crossing paths with the Demon would be an unkindness.”

“What does it matter?!” Essence snapped. “Their deaths are coming, Mother. I can feel it in the wind. And when they arrive, their blood will be on your hands. I will not sit idly by and allow that to happen.” In a waft of black smoke, her own daughter disappeared, and Ducra looked at the untouched snow where Essence’s feet had once been.

“You really think she’ll be ready?” S’aru asked behind her, skeptical as always.

“It is who she is,” Ducra replied. “I did not call her Essence for vain reasons.”


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter, one last go around on the angst express, then that fucker is pulling into the station...

Jason’s friends were weird.

It wasn’t just that one of them was an alien who could shoot lasers out of her hands, or that another one was apparently a super-genius who was constantly building new kinds of robots and attaching guns to them. That was all definitely weird, but for some reason, he wasn’t entirely phased by it. No, what was weird was the way they never quite seemed to look at him all the way, the way that Kori spent all her time on the beach and Roy spent all his time in his workshop and Eerie… Eerie seemed to stick to her room, from what he could tell.

He didn’t know how he knew it, but the silence that pervaded the big spaceship they lived in was unnatural, making him tense and jumpy as he wandered the halls, trying to refamiliarize himself with the place. 

Trying to refamiliarize himself with himself. There were things his body seemed to know how to do without him really thinking about it, like throw a punch or load a gun, that worried him, because how often did someone have to load a gun before sliding the bullets into the magazine came second nature?

Kori and Roy assured him that he was good, that they had fought  _ against _ the bad guys, but Roy’s eyes always cut to one side when he said it, and Eerie never said anything at all. 

Of course, the few times he’d actually managed to catch Eerie looking at him, there’d been a look of complete devastation on her face for a split second before she’d managed to smooth over it with a blank expression. He couldn’t imagine why anyone would be so hurt over him losing his memories -- after all, they’d have to be pretty bad for him to want them gone, wouldn’t they? Still, it bugged him, especially when no one would really answer his questions as to how he knew any of them.

After a few days of ghosting around the place, Eerie started coming out more regularly to work in the big computer room. Jason never followed her in, all too aware of how nervous his presence seemed to make her, but he’d walk by several times to catch quick glances of whatever she was doing. He couldn’t really make heads or tails of it; sometimes she’d be watching news footage from a murder, sometimes scrolling through public records, listings of titles and deeds. Sometimes it was just a screen full of maps and images and Eerie sitting there staring at it all.

The day she was reading a conspiracy website of the most ridiculous variety -- “SHADOW MONSTERS INVADE SMALL CANADIAN VILLAGE” -- Jason decided he couldn’t handle the silence any longer. “Hey,” he said as he stepped through the door, “whatcha looking at?”

She glanced up at him, and he caught the dark circles under her eyes before she could look away. “Just trying to find out if this has anything to do with the Untitled,” she said, gesturing vaguely at the screen.

“The things we hired you to find?” he asked, stopping a couple feet away from her chair and crossing his arms over his chest. When he’d plagued Roy with questions about Eerie, all he’d told him was that she was a “consultant,” helping them track down some bad dudes that needed to be taken care of.

Jason wasn’t sure what “taken care of” looked like in this scenario, but it had left a sick feeling in his stomach.

“Yeah,” Eerie said, clicking her way to another write-up on the same town. “Justice League checked it out about six years ago, right after there was a big fire in town that killed a bunch of people, but they didn’t find anything to support the ‘space aliens did it’ theory.”

“You work with the Justice League?” he asked, surprised. He’d gotten the impression that they were small-time vigilantes.

“Sometimes,” she said, not looking at him. “When they need me.”

“For your research skills?” Jason quirked an eyebrow. “Don’t they have, like, Batman or whatever?”

Eerie swallowed visibly, hands trembling just a hair. “Sometimes even Batman hires me,” she said flatly, as if that would keep him from noticing how upset she was. “Did you want something?”

Jason knew a dismissal when he heard one, but that didn’t mean he had to take the hint. “Yeah, actually,” he said, impulsively. “How come you never say anything when Roy’s doing his ‘you’re a good guy, Jay’ speech?”

Eerie’s hands stilled at the keyboard. “I didn’t feel like I had anything to add,” she said in the same flat tone. “He’s been working with you much longer than I have.”

“So you don’t know if I’m a good guy or not?” Jason pressed, glaring down at her. He was tired of these bullshit games they were trying to play with him, like he was some porcelain doll they couldn’t risk jostling with harsh truths. He immediately felt guilty, though, when she turned to look up at him without a trace of anger or irritation, eyes wide and lower lip quivering just a bit as she spoke in a soft tone.

“You were good to me.”

Then, like it had never happened, she returned to stony silence, fingers dancing across the console in a staccato rhythm of efficiency, and Jason, no closer to any kind of understanding, backed away.

 

+++++

 

When he’d programmed the Roybots with automatic lighting options, Roy wasn’t sure they’d actually be useful, but it was nice to be able to see where he was walking as he made his way along the tree line in relative dark. He’d come down to the beach with the idea of finding Kori, seeing if she was ready to turn in, but the farther he got from the ship, the easier it was to breathe, so Roy just kept putting one foot in front of the other as the electronic lizards and turtles detected his biometrics and lit his path.

Things were… not good. Nope. Not good was a good way to describe it. After their final spat in the snow of the Himalayas, Kori had acted like nothing had happened, and being the coward that he was, Roy had gone along with it. Besides, with Jason being all wide-eyed newborn coltish, he’d had bigger problems. Like figuring out how to cope with the fact that his best friend had apparently decided to erase his entire memory because it was too much to deal with anymore.

Occasionally, Roy had a particularly unkind thought, that only Jason Todd would believe himself  _ too _ fucked up to just kill himself like a regular fuck-up would.

Once again, he squashed the thought with a vengeance, but in so many ways it would be easier than this husk living with them, constantly asking questions like “How do I know you?” and “What do we do exactly?” and “Was I a good person?”

It was a just a matter of time before the truth came out. Roy knew that Jaybird was too stubborn and too clever to let himself be strung along for much longer. But, coward that he was, he didn’t have the stomach to spell it all out himself.

He kicked a clump of grass, eyes floating back out to the way the moonlight hit the ocean, with half a mind on finding Kori and embracing the sweet, temporary release of sex with an alien princess. Instead, what he saw was Eerie’s outline, sitting near the water’s edge, silhouette of a liquor bottle clear as day beside her.

Roy’s feet were moving before his brain had given them permission, but fortunately, he got control over his baser urges before he reached her, pointedly steering himself to the side without the alcohol. “Hey,” he said, just loud enough to be heard over the waves.

Eerie jumped a little, looked up sharply, then relaxed. “Hey,” she said in return.

“You okay?”

She shrugged. It was about how Roy felt. He sat down next to her. The scent of bourbon hung heavy around her, and Roy took a deep breath of it.

“Sorry ‘bout the… ya know,” she said, sounding a little sheepish. “Didn’t think you’d be out here.”

“It’s fine,” he replied. “If I wasn’t 100% sure it would make things worse, I’d ask for a drink.”

“I’ll gladly take one for you.” She picked the bottle up and tipped it back taking a long pull.

“Rough day?”

“Jason cornered me in the Omni room, asked if I didn’t think he was a good person.”

Her voice was rough and her words were a little slurred, which was the whiskey, but the nasal quality of her tone could only have come from a serious round of crying. “That sucks,” Roy acknowledged. “What did you tell him?”

Eerie huffed a laugh, leaned back on her hands. “I told him that he’d always been good to me,” she said, sarcastic edge coming through, “which isn’t true at all, because sometimes he was downright shitty, but how the fuck do you answer a question like that? How do you take a life and wrap it all into one clear package? I mean, do you get out the scales of justice and see which way it tips? Do you answer based on the most recent actions?” Her voice rose a little higher in pitch as she went on. “And we’re getting all existentialist about this anyway and maybe Jason doesn’t want an answer based exclusively on actions. Maybe he’s asking about intention -- what did the person he was  _ intend  _ to do? Did he  _ intend  _ to get his memories erased? Did he  _ intend  _ to forget all about us? Did he  _ intend  _ to break my goddamn heart?”

She pulled up short there, like she’d said too much, but Roy didn’t mind. Whatever this thing was that she and Jason had started, it had run deep real fast, and he could respect that. He reached out to place a hand on her shoulder, and she leaned against him readily. “Everything just got so fucked up so fast,” she said just above a whisper.

Roy snorted. “Tell me about it.”

They sat there for a few long moments, two heartsick people hiding their pain in the dark, drowning out the agony with the sound of the waves. Eventually, Eerie said, “I’m sorry about things with Kori.”

“You probably saw this coming a mile away, didn’t you?” Roy asked, a hint of dry amusement in his tone.

She nodded, her head rubbing slightly against his chest. “I actually broke my rules and said something to her about it, but… fuck, I’m sorry, Roy…”

“It’s okay,” he soothed. “And I’m sorry for some of the things I said back in the Acres of All. I get stupid when I’m angry.”

She chuckled again. “It’s alright.” She sighed. “You’ve been a good friend, Roy.”

“When I wasn’t being stupid and angry?”

“Even then, you were being a good friend to Jay.”

Roy gnawed at the inside of his mouth. “You know, my therapist tells me I’m too trusting, too forgiving. I bet he’d have a hey-day with you.”

Eerie snorted. “Even the people in my dreams tell me I need to be less empathetic.”

“Oh?”

She shifted slightly, pulling away from him to avoid answering by taking another drink. After a moment, she said, “I don’t think I can stay here. It’s too… it’s just too hard.”

“Honestly,” Roy admitted, “you’ve last longer than I would have expected anyone too.”

“A particular kind of masochism, I s’pose.”

“So you’ll go back to Gotham?”

“No.” The answer was quick and hard, and Roy was reminded of the bruises on her jaw when he’d picked her up the last time, the ones he’d avoided asking about because she was all clenched teeth and fury. “I’ll go back to Bludhaven,” she went on. “Still got the apartment there. Might as well use it.”

“You want a ride?”

“Just the nearest airport. I can make my own way.” She made a small sound of disappointment. “After I kill this bottle, though, because if I stop to think, I’ll end up staying and hating myself in the morning.”

“You’re gonna hate yourself in the morning anyway,” Roy said, imagining the hangover that would await her.

“Yeah, well, at the very least, I’ll be able to hate myself in peace.”


	29. Chapter 29

When Jason had emerged from the Lazarus Pit, he'd been little more than the shambling zombie he'd gone in as. The process of his mind returning to him had taken days of agony, nausea, sleeplessness, and the most intense feeling of panic he'd ever felt in his life. Talia had coaxed him through it, held him as he shook and moaned, eyes screwed shut against the blinding headache. She'd wiped tendrils of sick from his face and led him through breathing exercises to calm him during the storm of overbearing despair because  _ holy shit his life had sucked _ . She'd helped him transform that despair into anger, helped him channel that anger into purpose, all the time telling him that this was who he was, who he had been all along.

It was nothing like what happened as he hung from the make-shift cross in ‘Eth Alth’Eban.

As Ra’s Al Ghul gloated over Arsenal and Starfire, Jason's memories hit him like F5 tornado, bringing a flurry of scattered thoughts -- some of the  _ why the hell is he using Ming dynasty locks _ variety and some of the  _ did I leave a stove on somewhere _ variety.

There was no time to sort through the scatter of leaves, limbs, and debris that S’aru’s spell left in its wake as Jason’s fingers worked furiously at the locks. His mouth ran on autopilot as he fought, first the manbats, then Shiva herself, all the while trying to edge closer to where Arsenal and Starfire were crouched, still bound. The shot to the back of Shiva’s head was pure luck, though he’d never admit it. When Bronze Tiger closed in, though, Jason started to worry that his luck had run out; there were no shortcuts when it came to taking down the mass of man-cat muscle, so Jason tried the psychological approach. “You don’t have to do this, Ben,” he said as he tried to loosen the giant clawed fist wrapped around his thigh. “You’re better than this. The others were my teachers. You were my friend once.”

“I’ve killed friends before, boy!” the Bronze Tiger roared, but Jason was pretty sure he was playing for time with the way he was letting him dangle, and somehow, it was Starfire and Arsenal to the rescue. Starfire and Bronze Tiger shot off in a pink-and-striped blur as Roy hauled Jason back to his feet. “Good to see you again, Jaybird,” the redhead chirped.

“Likewise.” Jason found his footing in the rubble as Starfire reappeared at his left shoulder. “Sorry I had to trick you like this. I didn’t think it would go on so long.”

“Wait, what?” Roy said.

“Trick?” Starfire said at the same time.

“What? You guys didn’t figure it out yet?” he asked, looking between them incredulously. Surely Eerie caught on by now at least. “This has been the plan from the very beginning.” He looked around. “Where’s Eerie?”

Roy looked flustered, eyes trained on a new pair of obstacles. “She’s not here,” he said shortly, “and we’ve got company.”

Jason watched Rictus and Graystone streak through the cavern in their direction, not sure if he was relieved or worried that Eerie wasn’t with Roy and Kori.  _ Probably still back in Gotham _ , he thought,  _ safe and sound. Fight now; make up to your girlfriend if you make it out of this alive _ . “You guys take the wizard and tin man,” he said aloud. “I’ve got a bucket of water I need to introduce to a certain witch.”

Of course, that required entering the Well of Sins, and if memory served, Ducra had given him some kind of ominous warning about that, but there wasn’t any time for soul-searching when perhaps the most narcissistic man who had ever lived had just imbued himself with the power of a god, so Jason dipped his fingers in the pool of ooze with only the slightest bit of trepidation.

He’d felt this rush of power before, but the difference between a Lazarus Pit and the Well of Sin was the difference between a slice of rum cake and an actual shot of rum. It burned all the way down to his bones, a fiery afterglow following the initial scorching, leaving him gasping and trying hard to hide his tremors in the face of Ra’s. 

The first hit was  _ fucking fantastic _ . He drew the All-Blades with ease, thrumming with energy, a vicious grin settling onto his face at the prospect of finally cutting the world’s biggest asshole down to size.

Ra’s was unperturbed, barking a humorless laugh. “Did you think coming into the Well of Sins would allow you some of my power? Enough to defeat me perhaps?” He rose into the air above Jason, slime dripping off the toes of his boots. “You show none of the cunning of your mentor, Jason Todd. I’m disappointed.”

Jason had some choice words about being compared to his  _ mentor _ , especially with the green creeping around the edges again, but Ra’s didn’t give him a chance to get a word in.

“This power seeks a master worthy of it… a master who can withstand what it has to offer.” Ra’s lowered himself down to Jason’s level, peered straight into his eyes. “Feel it, Jason,” he purred. “Feel the weight of the sins of the  _ world _ .”

It started with the ache in his gut growing painful enough for him to notice, outpacing the adrenaline as it rushed up his spine to settle at the base of his skull, a feeling like a vice, squeezing tighter and tighter…

A sound…

_ Laughter… _

“The Well magnifies every dark corner of your heart,” Ra’s observed as the Well’s ooze around his feet began to take shape. “Every fear, every insecurity…” He smirked. “Every moment of failure…”

“Jokers,” Jason whispered, head jerking around to take in the forms the ooze had taken. Bile rose in his throat, and his legs started to tremble. “They’re not real…” he said, feeling his mind start to flash back to  _ that  _ warehouse in  _ that  _ desert that had been his biggest failure. The failure of  _ his fucking life _ . “They’re not real,” he repeated, but it was a small sound compared to the screams he heard, the screams he’d made. He tried to push the memories away.  _ Need to be here and now, Jay _ , he said to himself, and his knees hitting the stone beneath him as his legs finally gave way helped jar him from the constant replay of crowbar and fire and  _ that motherfucking laughter _ . He focused on breathing, on remembering the first time Eerie kissed him and the way he breathed with her when she panicked. Ra’s was talking, the goopy Joker brigade was laughing, but he was listening to Eerie breathe -- the slow, even rhythm of her sleeping... the tight, harsh sound of her sobs… the sharp sighs when she was working on a particularly frustrating problem... the way she panted into his neck when he was inside her, little hitches telling him when she was about to ride over the edge with him…

“Do you wish me me to end it, boy?” Ra’s was saying. “Only say the word. The demon’s head can be very merciful.”

“Accept the darkness,” Jason muttered, Ducra’s mantra taking on new meaning as he remembered the press of Eerie’s body against his, “embrace the light.”

“What are you saying, Jason?” Ra’s sing-songed. “Is it time?”

“No,” Jason said, All-Blades reforming in his grip, “It sure as hell isn’t!” The laughter that surrounded him was cut off suddenly as the blades cut through the ooze, meeting no resistance. Ra’s stumbled back. “How are you doing this?” 

Jason snorted. “C’mon Ra’s, surely you’ve got some demons of your own lurking around in that twisted head of yours. Why don’t you look them in the face?”

He hadn’t had anyone particular in mind when he’d said it; if he’d learned anything from working with Eerie, it was that sometimes just the suggestion was enough to bring exactly what you wanted to the fore. So he was smugly satisfied with Talia herself floated out of the Well to confront her father, giving him enough of a distraction to get back to his feet and reinforce his grips on his blades, using them to channel the wash of polluted power that made his gut churn. When Ra’s turned back to him, the man was flustered, angry. “You dare use the power of the Well against me?!” he roared. “You think to get under my skin so easily? You dare show me  _ her  _ face?” 

He lept at Jason, sword crashing down in a blow easily deflected as Jason side-stepped. “You showed yourself her face, Ra’s,” he countered. “You brought this pain on yourself.”

Ra’s continued swinging wildly, but that’s what Jason wanted -- the longer Ra’s was in the Well, the more irrational he’d become. “This isn’t pain,” the old man spat. “This is  _ power _ . Power you can’t hold because you are a  _ broken vessel _ .”

Jason snarled, lashing out in a quick kick that took Ra’s by surprise and forced him off-balance. “My entire life, people have told me how  _ broken _ I was,” Jason bit out through clenched teeth. “How easy it would be for me to let evil grab me and pull me into the darkness forever…” A lunge followed by a quick slash with his left-hand blade forced Ra’s back another step. “And maybe I am broken, maybe I’ve always been fucking broken, but you know what that means, Ra’s?” Quick step, block his blade, spin around it, kick his knee out -- it was all too easy now. “It means that I’ve rebuilt myself over and over and  _ over  _ again. I’ve picked up my own guts and bones and  _ fucking heart _ off the floor more times than I can count, stitched it all back together, asked myself what’s next.” Ra’s lost his footing under Jason’s assault, fell to his back, sword still up, but missing that confident arrogance. “You just keep coming back the same tired old man each time,” Jason sneered as he stood over him, flicking his All-Blades around the sword until it was tossed to the side. “This Well is agony, but you’ll learn nothing from it. You can only shatter from the weight of it, but I’ve broken enough times that I know where the seams are, and I know how to put myself back together.” 

He let the All-Blades dissipate, taking a deep breath to center himself as he focused on the line between his heart and his right hand --  _ accept the darkness, embrace the light _ \-- pulling that fist back and forcing it straight into Ra’s sternum --  _ accept the darkness, embrace the light _ \-- twisting it precisely as Ra’s began to spew black bile --  _ accept the darkness, embrace the light _ \-- and flattening his entire palm against Ra’s’s chest, pushing the old man out of the Well entirely.

It was a spectacular light show while it lasted, Ra’s lit up all green and sparkly, raving like a mad man as the power of the Untitled left his body. Unfortunately, even without that power, Ra’s was a hell of a fighter, and as his hand wrapped around Jason’s throat, there wasn’t much Jason could do to stop himself from being flung across the cavern, body feeling heavy and drained. Starfire started to help him up as Ra’s shrieked, “Kill them all! Rip them apart!”

And so this was it; Jason Todd’s second (and probably final) death was going to be at the hands of the League of Assassins, after he’d spent so many years calling them friends.  _ Sorry, Eerie _ , he thought,  _ doesn’t look like I’ll be able to make this up to you after all…  _ But at least he was with Roy and Kori, at least this time he wouldn’t be alone…

And then Essence appeared with the voice of a monarch and the halo of an angel, white hair rippling around her head. “No,” she said simply, knocking Ra’s back with the twitch of a finger, “you will not.”

“Who do you think you are to tell me what to do with my army?” Ra’s rebutted, though it was a little less imperious that the old demon’s usual tone, considering he was flat on his ass.

Essence merely hovered before him as Starfire pushed Jason behind her and Roy kept an arrow trained on the closest of the assassins that still surrounded them. “I know the location of every Lazarus Pit in the world, and I know wield the power to hunt each of them down and destroy them,” she answered, and Jason started to actually believe they might have a chance. “You will back down. You will allow these three to leave this place. Or you will be forced to die a pathetic, mortal death, just as you’ve always feared you might. The All-Caste will make sure of that.”

Ra’s regained his feet, spitting like an angry child. “The All-Caste has been destroyed! I saw to that before I started down this path.”

Essence lifted an eyebrow at him. “And thanks to you, it will now be reborn. All debts are paid, Ra’s. Do this and I will not seek war with you. Just let them walk away.”

For a second, Jason was sure Ra’s was going to argue further, but Ben stepped in to be the voice of reason. “Master, let them leave,” he said softly, settling his big paws gently on Ra’s’s shoulders. “We do not need their power to achieve the utopia we’ve all dreamt of.”

Ra’s took a shuddering breath, looking back at one of his most loyal servants. “Fine,” he spat. “Get them out of my sight, Bronze Tiger.” Then, because he’d always been the kind of asshole that had to have the last work, he whipped around to glare at Jason. “And if I ever see you again, they will write stories of your agony  _ for centuries _ !”

“Sure they will, fuckface,” Jason muttered under his breath as he and his team were transported back to the Acres of All.

“So that whole  _ I-decided-to-wipe-my-memories  _ thing was a trick?” Roy asked as they marched down the stairs after politely declining Essence’s offer to stay and get even further entrenched in magic and immortals and shit.

“Yeah, supposedly if I went into the Well of Sins to confront Ra’s with my memories intact I’d die or something,” Jason explained. “I didn’t really get a full explanation myself, but Ducra had never steered me wrong before.”

“I thought your mentor was dead,” Kori cut it, floating by his other shoulder.

“Her spirit was still hanging around, I guess,” he said. “Look, ironically, I don’t really remember what happened during my amnesiac phase. Where the hell is Eerie?”

“Bludhaven, last I heard,” Roy said, rubbing the back of his neck. “She left the island a little over a month ago.”

Jason’s brow furrowed. “Why’d she leave?”

“Ah, c’mon, Jay,” Roy said. “It was like you’d broken up with her but she was still having to live with you. She was fucking miserable.”

_ Well that’s just a kick in the nuts, but okay, I guess I get that _ . “But why Bludhaven?” Jason asked. “Why not Gotham?”

“I didn’t really get any details…” Roy started. 

Kori cut him off. “She had a disagreement with Batman. She did not wish to return to him.”

“I sent Red Robin a message,” Roy quickly elaborated. “Found his deets on your phone, let him know where she was headed, so she wasn’t, ya know, completely solo.”

“Oh.” Jason kept walking, kept putting one foot in front of the other. He swallowed before he spoke again. “Was she… was she angry?”

“Yes,” Kori said simply.

“But not at you!” Roy added quickly. “At least, not mostly at you. She was mad at the situation. You know. Like just mad about everything.”

“And when I tell her I did it all on purpose?”

Roy made a face. “You’re probably gonna wanna start with the whole saving the world, stopping the bad guy angle.”

“Great.” He heaved a sigh, pausing next to the exit of the Acres of All. “Well, where’d you guys leave the ship?”

He watched Roy and Kori exchange a look before Roy answered. “Uh, Gotham?”

“You’re kidding.”

Roy resettled his hat on his head. “It’s a long story…”

Kori flew them out of the mountains, setting down on the outskirts of Kathmandu. Jason had a safehouse there, with papers and supplies, but it took a couple of days to get Roy a passport too. While Kori made her own way home, Roy and Jason caught a late night flight to Abu Dhabi, then hung around the airport to catch the next plane to New York. It was enough time for Roy to get him up to speed: the visit from Green Arrow, Cheshire breaking in, getting propositioned by the Untitled and building them a mega-weapon… He didn’t say much about him and Kori splitting up until they were about seven hours into the trans-Atlantic trip, when they were both too sleep-deprived to be entirely sober and too on-edge to actually sleep.

“...and I know she’s lying to me, man,” Roy said, “and she’s been lying to me this whole time, about all this memory shit, but I can’t shake the feeling that she’s still lying about other stuff, ya know? And I can’t figure out if that’s just me being paranoid or if I’ve actually just been ignoring shit--”

Roy pulled up short, like he’d suddenly realized what was about to come out with the rest of the word vomit and just wasn’t quite ready to give voice to it. Jason rolled his eyes a little -- Roy had been all too happy to go on and on about Kori for the last two hours -- and said, “C’mon man, just spit it out. You’ll feel better.”

Roy took a breath. “Sometimes… sometimes she does things that remind me a little too much of me back during my junkie days.”

Jason sat up a little straighter. “Whoa, you think she’s on something?”

Roy held up his hands, shaking his head furiously. “I don’t know, man, I just don’t know. There’s nothing concrete, ya know? Just these little suspicions, these little twitches that are just a little too much like…” Roy looked over at him plaintively, eyes getting a little wet in the corners. “Jesus, Jay, I just don’t know!”

Jason grabbed onto one of Roy’s arms. “Okay, calm down, Roy,” he said, soothingly. “Just be cool. Alright, here’s the plan. We’ll get back States-side. I’ll either clear things up with Eerie, or go down in history as the biggest asshole ever. Then we’ll figure out what’s up with Kori, alright?”

Roy gasped a few breaths, then seemed to get ahold of himself. “Yeah, okay. Okay.”

Eventually, he fell asleep, but Jason kept staring out his window as they chased the sun, watching the glinting light off the ocean so, so far below. He tried to imagine what it would feel like if he found Eerie, only to have her send him away. He let the weight of it settled into his gut, felt as fully as he could the total emptiness that came with having something you wanted  _ with every fiber of your being _ stripped from your fingers.  _ Accept the darkness _ , he told himself. Accept that this could be what was to come, even after all the moments of warmth and ease: tucked into Eerie’s blanket-hood on the ship, sharing kisses; waking up next to her only to have her settle her body closer; crouching above the streets of Gotham, imagining, talking about what a  _ better future _ might be. It could all be over, but that didn’t change the fact that when he rebuilt himself again, Eerie would be there with him, in his guts and his bones and his heart. Accept the darkness, but  _ embrace that fucking light _ . 

 

+++++

 

In the six weeks Eerie had been back in the Haven, she’d managed a pretty definitive categorization of every member of the BPD, from beat cop all the way up to commissioner. It was a simple system, three categories: Crooked, At Risk to become crooked, and Good People. The middle column was depressingly well-populated, but if nothing else, the study proved that the individual culture of each station played an extensive role in whether or not those At Risk turned to the dark side. So really, all it would take to get the BPD out of the sewers was to oust the Crooked cops and make sure Good People were put in charge.

Easier said than done, but it was something to keep her busy.

She’d managed to make a few contacts within the Good People category, passing along this intel, but she was mostly flying without a net now. She set herself up some rules: no going out if you can’t walk the length of the hall without leaning on something, upload everything you find to at least three places, stay put if you’re showing migraine symptoms, no taking on groups of more than six thugs at a time, no taking on the heavy hitters by yourself. She followed them most of the time (especially the last one since, after Blockbuster, Bludhaven had mostly stuck to regular, run-of-the-mill organized crime), but a lot of the time, being out was better than being in, since being in meant being in the space that she’d shared with…

In any case, if Bludhaven was going to be her city now, she needed to start making a name for herself, and that meant punching some guts and kicking some balls. It was a new MO for her, but the old one hadn’t worked out so great, so...

Tim had apparently wired the apartment in her absence; the one night about a couple of weeks ago when she’d come in seriously fucked up, Red Robin had shown up via Superboy to tend to the knife wounds and the one bullet hole ( _ up to two now, Eerie, you’re on a roll _ ). “So,” he asked without looking at her face as he smeared antiseptic across his neat stitches, “do we need to have the ‘pushing yourself and being suicidal are two different things’ talk?” His tone was even, but Eerie could hear see the tension in his shoulders.

“Just fighting the good fight, Red,” she said. “We all get hurt sometimes.”

“Yeah, well.” Red sounded uncomfortable. “Look, I know things have been shitty in Gotham” --  _ with Batman _ went spoken -- “but you’ve done most of your work on the sidelines in the past. I guess I’m just worried about you being out here and jumping into fights with no one at your back.”

“Obviously not no one,” she answered drily, arching an eyebrow at him. 

He’d gotten better at his bat glare. “I know something about the whole ‘running away because of grief and betrayal’ thing,” he said sharply. “I lost my spleen in the process. It sure as hell didn’t make me feel better.”

Eerie’s jaw clenched and she fought as hard as she could against her eyes watering. Red still noticed and softened his tone. “Of all of us, you’ve always been the best at knowing your limits, sticking to your strengths. You’ve made more cases stick than me and B together. This new routine of yours,” he breathed out heavily and grabbed one of her hands. “Shit, Eerie, I’m just worried about you. I can’t lose someone else right now.” 

So Kairos had backed off the active crime-fighting a little and resumed her standard surveillance and recon work, adhering to her six-thugs-at-a-time rule more closely and dropping more tips to her Good People contacts instead. She’d spent the night following a messenger for the Bludhaven Reds, getting all kinds of addresses, before setting up to watch a poker game at the weapons depot that was the woman’s last stop. It was edging toward dawn when she dropped down on the fire escape outside her place and immediately noticed the window had been tampered with. Expertly tampered with -- none of the alarms or traps had gone off -- and whoever it was had made no attempt to cover up their entrance, so it was probably a friend. Probably. 

Nevermind the fact that she wasn’t too interested in seeing even friends right now.

_ Well _ , she thinks,  _ let’s get this over with. Best case scenario, it’s just Tim again. _

She decided to go for the entirely cocky, you’re-in- _ my _ -house-bastard approach, sliding the window open and stepping in without any hint of subterfuge, turning her back to the room to close and rearm it. “You better have a damn good reason for being here,” she snapped as she faced whoever it was.

And stopped short. 

“I promise I do,” Jason said as he stood from the couch, dressed in his uniform. His helmet was sitting at his side, a web of threads blossoming from his center. 

Kairos swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. “Hood?” she rasped, for a second unsure if Jason was really back or if his blank slate had somehow found new relationships and the uniform and her. 

“Yeah, it’s me,” he said, tapping his temple, “all here.”

Neither of them moved, Kairos not trusting her legs and Hood probably not wanting to scare her away if the open palms at his sides were any indication. “Why?” she asked, brow furrowing.

He shrugged. “You missed the big reveal where it all turned out to be a master plan to destroy the rest of the Untitled and foil Ra’s al Ghul.” He raised the whiteout lenses on his domino so she could see his eyes. “Look, it happened really fucking fast and for it to work everyone else needed to be in the dark --”

Kairos marched the few steps between them and slapped him, hard, leaving a satisfying mark on his cheek. He rubbed the skin gently as he looked back at her. “Yeah, I deserved that.”

She glared at him for a couple seconds more before throwing herself into his arms and kissing him deeply. When she pulled back, still clinging to his chest, his arms clasped around her, she said hoarsely, “Please, never do that to me again.”

“I won’t,” he said, nuzzling into her hair. “I promise.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's that. 
> 
> Thanks, everybody, who's stuck with this story. This was the first fic I ever got brave enough to post, and it's with great satisfaction that I see it completed.
> 
> That being said, I've been throwing around some sequel ideas...


End file.
